ill! 


^  / 


I^EOLCGICAL  eiMl^:AKY.| 
.     princetcD,  r:.  J.  1 

\  ^.-^-.--i 

BR  115  .P7  G58  v.l 
Goodell,  William. 
The  democracy  of       ^    , 
Christianity,  or  ' 


THE 


DEMOCMCY  or  CHRISTIANITY, 


OR 


AN  ANALYSIS  OF  THE  BIBLE  AND  ITS  DOCTRINES 


IN  THEIR  RELATION  TO  THE 


PRINCIPLE  OF  DEMOCRACY. 


VOL.  I. 


BY  A  CITIZEN  OF  THE  UNITED  STATES. 


NEW  YORK : 
CADY  &  BURGESS,  60  JOHN  STREET. 

1849. 


Entered  according  to  act  of  Congress  in  tlieyear  ©four  Lord  1 849, 

BY  CADY  &  BURGESS, 

In  the  Clerk's  Office  of  the  District  Court  of  the  United  States 
for  the  Southern  District  of  New  York. 


Day  <fe  Barber,  Printers,  81  Nassau  St. 


INTRODUCTION. 


Democracy  has  been  sometimes  opposed  in  the  name  of 
Christianity;  and  Christianity  has,  in  turn,  been  regarded  with 
distrust,  under  the  apprehension  that  its  influence  is  unfavora- 
ble to  the  principle  of  Democracy.  If  both  these  views  be 
unfounded — as  the  writer  believes  them  to  be — it  is  of  vast 
importance  that  the  mistake  be  corrected,  and  the  truth  of 
the  case  so  exhibited  as  to  prevent  such  errors  in  future. 

And  if,  as  is  farther  believed,  the  connexion  between  Christian- 
ity and  Democracy  is  so  vital  and  so  intimate  that  the  one  cannot 
exist  in  its  integrity  and  purity  without  the  other — that  neither 
can  be  maintained  nor  correctly  defined  without  the  other — 
such  a  fact,  if  it  be  a  fact,  becomes  of  unspeakable  importance 
to  the  human  family,  as  citizens  of  the  present  world,  and  as 
expectants  of  the  future.  Such  a  truth,  if  it  exist,  should  be 
so  ascertained  and  established  as  never  again  to  be  called  in 
question,  and  so  exhibited  and  impressed  as  to  gain  a  perma- 
nent lodgment  in  the  human  mind.  The  ideas  of  Religion  and 
Liberty  would  then  become  associated  together  and  indissolubly 
conjoined.  Men  would  refuse  to  recognize  the  one,  where  the 
claims  of  the  other  were  spurned  aside.  Christianity  and  De- 
mocracy would  be  seen  walking  hand  in  hand,  and  the  promo- 
tion of  the  one  would  be  seen  to  require  and  involve  the  pro- 
motion of  both.  With  a  view  to  these  objects  the  pages  here 
presented  have  been  penned. 


IV  INTRODUCTION. 

In  affirming  tlie  Democracy  of  Christianity  we  do  not  affirm 
the  Democracy  of  all  that  passes  current  for  Christianity,  nor 
any  of  the  abuses  and  errors  that  human  infirmity  or  perverse- 
ness  may  have  engrafted  upon  it,  or  connected  with  it.  Nor 
do  we  mean  to  intimate  that  all  which  passes  under  the  name 
of  Democrac}^,  or  that  may  become  apparently  identified  with 
it,  is  in  accordance  with  the  Christian  religion. 

In  a  comparison  of  the  one  with  the  other,  it  is  important 
that  we  distinguish  not  only  between  the  spurious  and 
the  genuine,  but  between  the  incidental  and  the  fanda- 
mental.  We  must  look  beyond  the  mere  form  to  the 
substance.  We  must  discriminate  between  appearances  and 
realities,  so  as  to  attain  clear  and  just  conceptions  of  what 
Christianity  and  Democracy  really  are,  in  distinction  from  what 
they  are  not,  excluding  carefully  from  the  definition  of  each 
whatever  does  not  properly  belong  to  it.  If  we  shall  have 
been  able  to  succeed  in  this,  the  comparison  between  them 
will  be  not  only  instructive  but  pleasant  and  easy.  It  will 
only  be  by  a  patient  collection  of  facts  and  a  searching 
analysis  of  principles  that  such  just  definitions  can  be  reached. 

A  difficulty  seems  to  present  itself  in  the  almost  intermina- 
bly diversified  expositions  of  the  Christian  religion,  growing  up 
into  rival  systems  and  becoming  the  shibboleths  of  contending 
schools  and  sects.  The  professed  advocates  of  Democracy  and 
of  democratic  institutions  are  not  better  agreed  in  respect  to 
some  of  the  principles  of  Democracy.  There  is  often  a  very 
wide  chasm  between  them  in  their  views  of  the  appropriate 
forms  and  organic  arrano-ements of  democratic  institutions;  and 
no  controversies  are  more  earnest  and  even  violent  than 
those  growing  out  of  the  advocacy  of  rival  political  measures, 
each  party  claiming  to  embody  and  exemplify  most  happily,  if 


INTRODUCTION.  V    . 

not  exclusively,  the  elements  and  workings  of  tlie   democratic 
principle  and  polity. 

Shall  Ave  therefore  conclude  that  there  are  no  fundamental 
principles  and  tendencies  of  Christianity  and  of  Democracy 
that  may  be  ascertained  and  compared?  Certainly  not.  Amid 
all  this  contention  and  confusion  there  are  points  of  agreement 
and  elements  of  order  that  no  arts  of  sophistry,  no  rivalries  of 
interest,  no  whirlwinds  of  passion,  no  incrustations  of  prejudice, 
can  either  confound  or  remove,  can  either  overthrow  or  con- 
ceal. There  are  self-evident  truths  that  shine  in  their  own 
light  and  that  compel  universal  assent  There  are  out-standing 
and  significant  facts  that  no  man  in  his  senses  can  call  in  ques- 
tion. There  are  imperishable  records  and  immoveable  monu- 
ments that  bid  defiance  to  the  cavils  of  scepticism  and  to  the 
tooth  of  time.  All  these,  which  the  mutual  concessions,  the 
alternate  and  interchanging  recognition  of  all  sects  and  parties 
have  been  compelled  to  ratify,  making  them  only  the  more 
sure,  conspicuous,  and  prominent  amid  the  idle  dashing  of  the 
waves  at  their  bases,  are  amply  sufficient  for  the  purposes  of 
our  proposed  investigation. 

Wme  it  possible  for  us,  in  the  prosecution  of  this  task,  to  rise 
above  every  partisan  bias — to  shake  off  the  prejudices  of  educa- 
tional training  and  habits  of  fragmentary  thinking,  so  as  to  sur- 
vey impartially  the  whole  ground — we  might  possibly  be  able 
so  to  select  materials  for  the  edifice  of  our  argument  as  to  re- 
tain none  that  any  wise  and  good  man,  of  any  sect  or  party, 
would  think  it  safe  or  proper  to  challenge.  But  this  we  can 
not  hope  to  do.  The  vain  attempt  to  see  with  the  eyes  of  every 
other  man  would  only  prevent  us  from  seeing  with  our  own, 
and  the  fear  of  disturbing  the  prejudices  of  others  would  only 
weaken  or  confuse  our  argument  by  preventing  a  full  and  frank 


,  VI  INTRODUCTION. 

expression  of  our  own  convictions.  It  remains  then  for  the 
writer  to  present  such  outUnes  of  Christianity  and  of  Democra- 
cy as  on  the  most  careful  examination  he  beheves  to  be  correct, 
and  adapted  to  exhibit  truthfully  the  connexions  between  them 

Without  expecting  his  delineations  to  be  faultless,  he  hopes 
so  far  to  succeed  in  his  endeavors  as  to  exhibit  much  of  sub- 
stantial and  important  truth,  relying  on  his  readers,   each   one 
for  himself,  to  examine  w^ith  candor  and  receive  with   fidelity 
Avhatever  he  believes  to  be  true,  rejecting  whatever  he  consid- 
ers errone  'US  or  irrevelant.     Without   seekino-   to  Iuq:  in  the 
technicalities  or  magnify  the  tenets  of  any  particular  school  to 
the  unjust  disparagement  of  others,  he  shall  make  no  secret  of 
his  own  political  opinions.     While  desiring  to   avoid   needless 
oflFense,  he  shall  not  knowingly  suppress    any   important    and 
appropriate  truth,  according  to  the  decisions  of  his  own  judg- 
ment.     At  the  same  time  that  he  makes  no  claim  to  originality 
of  sentiment,  propounds  no  novel  theology,  and  is  not  conscious 
of  departing  very  widely  from  religious  and  political  creeds  re- 
ceived generally  among  us,  he  shall  feel   under  no  obligation 
to  follow  precisely  the  beaten  track,  nor  to  dodge  if  he    finds 
just  occasion  the  application  of  old  truths  in  new  and  unwonted 
directions.      If  some  shall  regard  him  too  orthodox,  if  others 
shall   suspect  him   of  heresy — if  some  shall  think    him  too 
conservative,    if  others   shall   esteem    him    too    radical — he 
will    gladly    welcome    candid    criticisms    from    every    quar- 
ter, Avell  assured  that  discussion  will  elicit  truth.     He  believes 
that  the    true  orthodoxy  and  the  genuine  free-thinking  can  af- 
ford to  be  combined— that  the  true  radicalism  will  be  found  to 
be  conservative  of  whatever  should  be  preserved,  and  the  true 
conservatism  essential  to  every  radical  reform.    To  the  further- 
ence  of  these  ends  he  would  contribute  his  mite,  content  if  he 


INTRODUCTION.  Vll 

may  but  help  to  direct  attention  to  the  imjDortant  but  neglected 
topics  involved  in  his  investigations. 

Against  one  very  common  error  of  the  times  the  writer  de- 
sires, in  the  outset,  to  be  guarded  against  himself,  and  to  cau- 
tion those  who  may  hold  or  may  embrace  the  general  senti- 
ments he  advocates — and  that  is,  the  error  of  so  magnifying 
an}^  one  favorite  phase  or  manifestation  of  true  religion  as  to 
thrust  other  features  and  characteristics  of  the  same  religion 
into  the  back  o-round — thus  substitutino;  one  Christian  virtue 
for  another — displacing  an  old  truth  to  make  room  for  a  new 
one — or  mistaking  a  part  of  Christianity  for  the  whole.  To  this 
error  we  are  often  exposed,  when  we  find  ourselves  under  the 
necessity  of  making  special  efforts  to  bring  truths  into  notice 
that  have  long  been  forgotten  or  covered  over  with  the  rubbish 
of  ages.  Such  work  must  needs  be  done,  but  in  doing  it  we 
should  beware  of  letting  go  our  hold  of  old  and  perhaps  abused 
and  perverted  truths,  in  our  eagerness  to  lay  hold  of  what  ap- 
pears to  us  more  new,  more  attractive,  or  more  immediately 
available  in  the  position  in  which  we  find  ourselves  placed.  He 
is  but  a  slovenly  workman,  however  ardent,  who  buries  up  or 
mars  one  half  of  his  implements  in  finding  the  one  he  has  pre- 
sent occasion  to  use,  instead  of  keeping  them  all  safe  in  their 
proper  places  and  at  command.  Much  as  the  world  now  needs 
the  Democracy  of  Christianity  it  does  not  need  it  enough  to 
throw  away  or  to  obscure  one  half  of  Christianity  in  the  abortive 
effort  to  restore  it.  No  one  feature  of  Christianity  can  be  made 
to  thrive  in  the  absence  of  its  fellows,  nor  can  any  moral  truth 
be  preserved,  unperverted,  if  disserved  from  the  great  whole  to 
which  it  belongs,  and  of  which  it  forms  but  a  segment. 

The  term  "  Christianity  "  we  have  employed  in  its  widest 
extent,  to  denote  the  true  reho-ion,  whenever  and  hoAvever  re- 


Vlll  INTRODUCTION. 

vealed — not  less  the  religion  of  nature,  properly  studied,  than 
the  Bible — of  the  earlier  Hebrew  Scriptures  as  well  as  of  those 
penned  by  the  Evangelists  and  Apostles — a  definition  which 
includes  the  incipient  and  embryo  Christianity  of  the  patri- 
archs, of  Moses,  and  of  the  prophets,  in  its  anticipating  attitude 
and  symbolic  dress. 

We  have,  in  fact,  occupied  the  first  volume,  except  the  last 
chapter,  with  an  examination  of  the  Old  Testament  economy, 
so  commonly  believed  to  have  been  anti-democratic  in  its  char- 
acter. In  doing  this  we  have  thought  it  proper  to  construe  the 
earlier  dispensation  in  the  light  of  the  later,  excluding 
eluding  or  explaining  the  pecuhar  and  transient  by  the  per- 
fected  and  permanent.  And  lest  our  own  expositions  should 
seem  startling,  or  be  thought  partial,  we  have  made  free  use 
of  a  commentator  whose  candor,  good  sense,  and  moderation 
have  given  him  a  general  currency,  in  most  sects,  while  his  po- 
sition in  the  Church  of  England,  under  a  throne  and  a  prelacy, 
will  absolve  him  from  the  charo-e  of  beino-  too  democratic  or 
too  radical. 


TABLE  OF  CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER  I. 

The  Common  Origin  of  Mankind — And  the  Essen- 
tial Unit}^  and  Equality  of  the  Human  Family       -  13 

CHAPTER  11. 

The  Fall  OF  Our  First  Parents  -         -         _         _  19 

CHAPTER  m. 

The  Antedeluvians  and  the  Deluge  -         -  28 

An  Objection  and  the  Answer     -         -         _  30 

No  Record  of  Antedeluvian  Governments     -  34 

CHAPTER  IV. 

Noah  and  the  New  World — The  Times  of  the  Pa- 
triarchs -------_  40 

The  First  Charter  of  Civil  Government         -  42 

Patriarchal  Simplicity         -         -         .         .  49 

The  Cities  of  the  Plain       -         -         .         .  52 

CHAPTER  V. 

Egypt  and  the  Hebrews 55 

An  Explanation         -         -         -         .         .  71 

CHAPTER  VI. 

The  Hebrew  Commonwealth — The  Institutions  of 

Moses.     -         -         - 13 

The  Materials    -         -         -         -         -         -  73 

The  Fabric        ---.__  79 

"  Divine  Right  of  Kings "   -         -         -         -  80 

Choice  of  Officers  by  the  People — Their  Qual- 
ifications    82 


X  TABLE  OF  CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER  VII. 

Elements    of   the   Commonwealth — General   Suf- 
frage— The  Judiciary 84 

Court  of  the  Congregation  ...  §7 

Court  of  Final  Appeal  or  Reference     -         -  89 

CHAPTER  VIIL 

Of  the  Hebrew  Idea  of  Law  and  of  Legislative 

Power    --...-.-  go 

CHAPTER  IX. 

Further  View  of  the  Mosaic  Code — Its  Relation 

to  Common  Law       --.._-  loo 

Hebrew  and  English  Law  compared    -         -  109 

CHAPTER  X. 

Civil  and  Judicial  Code  Further  An-alyzp:d         -  121 

Alien  Laws       .-..--  129 
The  Division  and  Tenure  of  Lands — Bank- 
ruptcy, and  Limitation  of  Collection  of  Debts 

— Securities,  &c.         -         -         -         -         -  loO 

Pauperism — Poor  Laws     -         -         -         -  134 

CHAPTER  XL 

Of  the  Bearing  of  the  Mosaic  Institutions  upon 

Monarchical  Arrangements  -         -         -         -  139 

CHAPTER  XIL 

Summary  View. — Chasms  in  the  Hebrew  Idea  of  Civil 

Government  and  its  Functions  -         -         -  163 

CHAPTER  KIIL 
The  Ecclesiastical  Polity  of  the  Hebrews       -  169 

CHAPTER  XIV. 
Relation   of   the    Priesthood    to    the    Common- 

WEATH  ----.-.-  203 

CHAPTER  XV. 

Of  THE  Military  Power   among  the  Hebrews — 

Its  Relation  to  the  Civil  Government         -         -  213 


TABLE  OF  CONTENTS.  XI 

CHAPTER  XVI. 

•  Hero-Worship — National  Pride       -         -         -  219 

CHAPTER  XVII. 

General  Character  and  Natural  Tendencies  of 

THE  Mosaic  Laws  and  Institutions.         -         -  228 

CHAPTER  XVni. 

Review — Of  the    Hebrew  Monarchy  from  Saul  to 

Zedekiah        ---....  244 

CHAPTER  XTX. 

Scenes  op  Babylon  and  Shushan         -         -         -  256 

CHAPTER  XX. 

The  Restoration — The  Rebuilding  of  the  Temple 
and  Wall  of  Jerusalem 269 

CHAPTER  XXI. 

Of  the  Hebrew  Prophecies — Before  the  Assyrian 
and  Chaldean  Conquests,   and   in  Reference   to 

those  Events    - 281 

Isaiah       -,---..  283 

CHAPTER  XXII. 

Of  the  Hebrew  Prophecies,  In  Continuation   -  303 

Jeremiah  -------  3O3 

Ezekiel     ----...  310 

Hosea 315 

Micah       -------  318 

Habukkuk         -         -         -         -         .         .  31 9 

Zephaniah 32o 

CHAPTER  XXIII. 

Of  the  Jewish  History — From  the  Close  of  the 
Old  to  the  Commencement  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment Records 325 

CHAPTER  XXIV. 
The  Culmination  and  the  Catastrophe  -  332 


TABLE  OF  CONTENIS. 

CHAPTER  XXV. 

Of  the  New  Testament  Records        -         -         -  345  • 


ERRATA. 
Page  22,  second  line,  read,  "and  death  by  sin." 
Page  33,  18th  line,  read,  "  a  regard,"  etc. 

Page  45,  4th  line  from  bottom,  read,  "  neither  shall  all  flesh,"  etc. 
Page  53,  6Ui  line,  read,  "  once  slightly  hinted  at,"  etc. 
Page  80,  bottom  line,  read  "  miraculously  designated,'*  etc. 
Page  82,  3d  line  from  bottom,  read,  "  and  Gud  command  thee  so,"  etc. 
Page  122,  twelfth  line,  omit  the  word  up. 
Page  130  4th  line  from  bottom,  far  "  are  "  read  "  were." 
Page  170,  6ih  and  7ih  lines  from  the  bottom  to  be  tran^posed. 
Page  183,  6th  line,  omit  the  before  masses. 
Page  198,  lllh  line,  read,  "  because  they  have  three,"  etc. 
Page  220,  9th  line,  for  *' exhortation,"'  read"  exaltation." 
Page.?33,  i^th  line,  for  "  inseparable,''  read,  "  insuperable." 
Page  284,  9th  line,  for  "  were  "  read  "  more." 
Page  290,  1 1th  line,  for  "  national"  read  "natural." 
Page  303,  i5th  line  Irom  bottom,  read  ''committed  in  the  land." 


PART  h 


THE  HISTORICAL  RECORDS  AND  FOUNDATION 
FACTS  OF  CHRISTIANITY. 


CHAPTER  I. 

THE   COMMON  ORIGIN  OF  MANKIND,  AND  THE  ESSEI^TIAL  UNITY  AND 
EQUALITY  OF  THE  HUMAN  FAMILY. 

The  common  origin  of  mankind  is  among  the  first  historical 
records  of  the  Bible — one  of  the  foundation  facts  of  the  Christian 
revelation.  Other  religions  may  admit  a  plurality  of  gods,  and 
such  religions  may  consistently  admit  a  plurahty  of  races  among 
the  rational  inhabitants  of  the  earth,  deriving  their  orio-in  from 
rival  divinities,,each  distinct  race  owing  allegiance  to  its  own 
local  gods,  and  depending  upon  them  for  exclusive  aid  and  pro- 
tection. Such  are  most  of  the  gods  of  heathenism,  and  the 
worshipofthemis  naturally  connected  with  the  artificial  division 
of  mankind  into  distinct  races,  clans,  hordes,  and  castes ;  the 
subjugationof  the  weaker  by  the  stronger;  and  the  pretensions  of 
some  races  and  families  to  a  more  exalted  orioin  and  a  more 
noble  blood  than  their  less  opulent,  less  powerful,  or  less  refined 
neighbors. 

In  opposition  to  all  these  pretensions,  the  Bible  distinctly 
and  minutely  unfolds  to  us  the  common  descent  of  all  mankind 
from  one  human  pair,  Adam  and  Eve;  and  then  agam  after  the 
general  deluge,  the  peopHng  of  the  whole  earth,  and  the  found- 
ing of  the  ancient  nations  by  the  posterity  of  Noah.    The  lubqe- 


'14  DEMOCRACY    OF    CHRISTIANITY. 

qiient  history  of  the  patriarchs  and  of  the  ancient  nations  is  in- 
terwoven by  the  sacred  writers  into  the  thread  of  those  minute 
details  that  attest  the  oneness  of  the  human  famih'.  The  fact 
of  that  unity,  if  admitted,  confirms  the  principal  facts  and  events 
recorded  in  the  Old  Testament,  and  stamps  with  the  seal  of 
authenticity  and  verity  the  Mosaic  account  of  the  creation  of  man 
and  of  the  world.  And,  on  the  other  hand,  a  confiding  recep- 
tion of  that  account  compels  assent  to  the  oneness  of  the  hu- 
man family. 

The  common  origin  of  mankind,  as  it  implies  a  first  pair, 
from  whom  all  the  race  have  descended,  implies  also  a  beginning 
of  the  species,  and  this  harmonizes  with  the  idea  of  the  previous 
beginning  of  the  world,  or  its  creation  out  of  nothing,  according 
to  the  Bible,  in  opposition  to  the  theories  that  affirm  or  imply  its 
existence  from  eternity,  and  thus  undermine  the  belief  in  a  Cre- 
ator, or  universal  and  intelligent  first  cause  of  all  things. 

Our  belief  in  the  Bible,  in  the  creation  of  man,  the  creation 
of  the  world,  and  the  existence  of  a  Creator,  are  thus  closely  con- 
nected with  a  belief  in  the  common  origin  and  essential  unity, 
equality,  and  brotherhood  of  the  human  species.  If  either  one 
of  these  ideas  be  received,  all  the  others  are  naturally  received 
with  it.  They  form  harmonious  parts  of  one  symmetrical  and 
compact  whole.  If  either  of  them  be  rejected,"^  the  others  are 
naturally  rejected  with  it,  just  as  the  removal  of  one  stone  from 
an  arch  endangers  the  whole,  or  as  the  breaking  of  one  link  sev- 
ers the  chain. 

To  deny  the  common  brotherhood  and  essential  equality  of 
mankind  is  to  deny  the  Bible  and  the  whole  system  of  relio-ion 
it  reveals  to  us.  To  admit  that  common  brotherhood  and  equal- 
ity is  to  admit  one  of  the  principal  foundation  facts  upon  the 
basis  of  which  the  whole  system  of  Bible  theology  rests;  and 
the  admission  carries  with  it  a  recognition  of  the  congruity  and 
consistency  of  the  whole. 

So  well  has  this  been  understood  by  the  enemies  of  Christi- 
anity and  by  objectors  against  the  Bible,  that  the  most  learned 
and  philosophical  among  them  have  labored  hard  to  discredit 
the  common  origin  and  equality  of  mankind. 


DEMOCRACY     OF    CHRISTIANITY.  15 

To  do  this,  *-'soifie  liave  said  it  Avas  impossible  for  one  family 
to  spread  over  all  the  world,  as  we  find  the  nations  of  the 
earth  have  done."  The  same  persons  and  others  have  affect- 
ed to  find  difficulties  in  understanding  how  scattered  islands  and 
this  western  continent  could  have  been  peopled  from  the  east- 
ern nations.  Others  have  pressed  into  their  service  the  absurd 
and  fabulous  legends  of  those  nations  (as  the  Bab3donians,  the 
Egyptians,  and  the  Chinese,)  who,  in  the  absence  of  anything 
like  a  rational,  connected,  or  credible  history  reaching  so  far 
back,  have  taken  a  foolish  pride  in  trying  to  ckini  an  antiquity 
inconsistent  with  the  plain  and  authentic  records  of  the  Scrip- 
tures— an  antiquity  that  cannot  be  reconciled  with  the  admitted 
ignorance  and  barbarism  in  which  those  nations  were  involved, 
so  many  ages  afterwards  and  which  renders  it  incredible  that 
they  could  have  had  any  authentic  prcAious  histories.  Others 
have  drawn  objections  against  the  unity  of  the  human  family 
from  "  the  great  diversity  of  customs,  manners,  and  complexions 
of  different  nations." 

In  these  and  similar  ways  it  has  been  attempted  to  discredit 
the  Bible  and  the  religion  it  teaches,  by  creating  doubts  in  re- 
spect to  the  common  origin  of  mankind,  as  revealed  in  the 
Scriptures. 

And  not  a  few  among  those  who  wish  to  find  some  excuse 
or  palliation  for  their  practical  violations  of  the  principle  of 
human  equahty  and  brotherhood,  for  their  schemes  of  national 
ambition,  aggression,  and  conquest,  for  the  subjug-ation  of  the 
weaker  by  the  stronger,  and  especially  for  the  oppression  and 
enslavement  of  those  who  do  not  belong  to  the  same  division 
of  the  race  with  themselves,  assuming  their  own  superiority  on 
the  ground  of  descent  or  race,  as  marked  by  differences  of  phy- 
sical conformation  or  color,  have  been  equally  solicitous  to 
make  out  some  such  grounds  of  incredulity  in  respect  to  the 
original  and  essential  equality  of  the  human  race  as  shall  keep 
them  in  countenance  in  their  pride,  inhumanity  and  injustice. 
It  is  doubly  painful  to  notice,  as  impartiality  compels  us  to  do, 
that  some  of  those  who  profess  to  believe  in  the  Bible,  to  rev- 
erence its  teachings,  and  to  receive  the  benign  religion  it  in- 


16  DEMOCllACl'    OF    CHKIbTlAXlTY. 

culcates,  have  so  far  forgotten  their  high  professions,  as  to  give 
countenance  to  these  theories.  And  others  of  them,  who  dared 
not  adventure  to  question  directly  the  common  origin  of  the 
ra''8,  have  hibored  to  extort  from  the  Scriptures  themselves  by 
laborious  perversions,  some  warranty  for  regarding  and  treat- 
ing a  portion  of  the  human  race  as  their  inferiors. 

In  both  these  ways,  the  Bible  is  brought  into  discredii ; — 
first,  by  withholding  assent  from  its  express  revelation  of  human 
equality  and  brotherhood ;  second,  by  attempts  to  press  the  Bi- 
ble itself  into  a  conspiracy  to  render  that  equalit}^  and  that 
brotherhood  a  nullity,  in  the  intercourse  of  man  with  his 
brother. 

Without  entering  into  any  labored  refutation  of  these  objec- 
tions, whether  from  skeptics  or  from  the  apologists  of  oppres- 
sion, or  both  combined,  suffice  it  to  say,  here,  that  the  inves- 
tigation of  the  subject,  with  the  increasing  lights  of  science, 
and  the  more  extended  knowledo-e  of  the  facts  of  authentic  his- 

o 

tory,  sacred  and  profane,  are  steadily  putting  to  rest,  one  after 
another,  the  arguments  that  objectors  have  urged,  till,  in  fact, 
no  intelhgent  man  denies  that  the  very  portion  of  the  race  so 
confidently  branded  with  inferiority,  now  stands  identified  in  de- 
scent, color,  and  physical  conformation,  Avith  the  most  enlight- 
ened and  renowned  of  the  ancient  nations,  (the  Egyptians,) 
from  whom  not  only  the  Greeks  and  Romans,  but  even  the  He- 
brews themselves,  received  the  rudiments  of  civilization  and 
learning,  that  in  process  of  time  have  come  down  to  us.  As  to 
the  peopling  of  America,  the  great  problem  a  century  ago,  it  is 
as  readily  solved,  as  the  question  how  the  canoes  of  the  natives 
can  pass  frequently  over  Bhering's  Strait,  as  the}^  are  now 
known  to  do.  For  a  quarter  of  a  century  past,  that  objection 
has  grown  stale,  but  not  more  so  than  all  others  probably 
will,  in  a  quarter  of  a  century  more.  The  common  origin  of 
the  race  is  becoming  apparent  from  affinities  of  language, 
never  until  recently  traced,  and  is  rapidly  hastening  to  take  its 
proper  place,  as  a  fixed  fact  of  science,  as  well  as  a  first  truth  in 
rehgion  and  morals. 

For  the  purposes  of  our  proposed  analysis,  it  is  sufficient  to 


DEMOCRACY  OF  CHRISTIANITY.      '  1  7 

present  in  bold  relief,  and  in  the  fore-front  of  the  picture,  the 
common  origin  of  mankind,  and  the  essential  unity  and  equalifij 
of  the  human  family,  as  a  foundation  fact  of  the  Christian  religion, 
unequivocally  affirmed  in  its  records.  There  it  stands,  part  and 
parcel  of  the  Christian  system,  discredit  it  who  may,  disprove  it 
who  can.  When  that  statement  of  the  Bible  falls  to  the  ground 
Christianity  falls  \\\{\\  it.  While  Christianity  stands,  the  state- 
ment stands  with  it.  Whoever  takes  the  former  must  take  the 
latter  along  with  it,  and  welcome  whatever  it  involv(_^s. 

It  may  not  be  out  of  place  to  notice  here  what  we  may 
have  occasion  to  remember  elsewhere  in  the  course  of  this  dis- 
cussion, that  the  castes  so  natural  to  the  systems  of  heathen- 
forming  the  very  atmosphere  in  which  they  breathe,  are 
the  abhorrence  of  Christianity,  and  must  needs  be  displaced,  in 
order  to  her  gaining  any  permanent  foothold  on  heathen 
ground.  And  wherever,  on  ground  occupied  by  Christianity 
and  her  institutions,  the  arrangements  of  caste  make  their 
appearance,  there  Christianity  withers,  is  crippled,  is  marred, 
becomes  perverted,  is  corrupted,  or  is  displaced,  unless  in  due 
season  she  can  banish  the  intruder  from  her  borders. 

Christianity  vindicates  her  claim  to  be  a  world  religion,  be- 
cause she  recognizes  the  unity  and  equality  of  all  men,  and 
seeks  to  unite  them  all  on  the  basis  of  that  equality  and  union, 
and  under  the  guidance  and  protection  of  the  common  Father 
of  all.  She  would  cease  to  be  Christianity,  if  she  could  fail  to 
attempt  this,  nay,  to  do  this,  so  far  as  her  divine  claims  are 
honored. 

Thus  vitally  is  i\\eifact  of  the  common  origin  and  essential 
unity  and  equality  of  the  human  family  identified  wnth  the 
Christian  religion,  with  the  truthfulness  of  its  historic  records, 
with  the  symmetry  of  its  system,  with  its  character,  its  ob- 
jects, its  claims — nay,  with  its  very  identity — its  existence. 

The  essential  unity,  common  brotherhood,  and  equal  domin- 
ion upon  the  earth  of  all  men,  is  moreover  affirmed  in  the  grant 
of  kingly  power  over  the  animal  creation  and  the  soil.  "  And 
God  said,  Let  us  make  man  in  our  own  image,  after  our  like- 
ness, and  let  them  have  dominiou  over  the  fish  of  the  sea,  and 


18  DEMOCRACY  OF  CHRISTIANITV. 

over  the  fowl  of  the  air,  and  over  the  cattle,  and  over  all  the 
earth,  and  over  every  creeping  thing  that  creepeth  upon  the 
earth."  '•'  And  God  blessed  thera,  and  God  said  unto  them,  Be 
fruitful,  and  multiply,  and  replenish  the  earth,  and  subdue  it; 
and  have  dominion  over  the  fish  of  the  sea,  and  over  the  fowl  of 
the  air,  and  over  every  living  thing  that  moveth  on  the  earth." — 
Gen.  i.  26-28.  The  same  is  substantially  repeated  to  ''  Noah 
and  his  sons,"  Gen.  ix.  1-3,  where  it  is  closely  connected  with 
the  first  divine  charter  of  civil  go\'ernment,  as  will  hereafter  be 
considered. 

^Nothing  can  be  more  evident  than  that  this  grant  is  to  the 
entire  family  of  man  in  common,  that  it  describes  a  joint  do- 
minion of  man  over  the  soil  and  over  the  lower  animals,  utterly 
i  ncompatible  with  any  similar  dominion  of  man  over  his  broth- 
er. This  strikes  a  blow  at  the  foundation  of  all  autocratic  pow- 
er, as  well  as  all  the  claims  of  man  to  property  in  his  fellow  man. 

The  relation,  then,  of  Christianity  to  Democracy,  may  be  as- 
certained by  fixing,  with  equal  precision,  if  we  can,  the  con- 
nexion subsisting  between  the  democratic  principle  and  the 
same  great  fact  of  the  common  origin,  unity,  and  equality  of  all 
men. 

And  here,  the  process  of  a  formal  inquiry  seems  needless. 
The  answer  is  anticipated  by  every  one.  It  is  seen  at  a  single 
glance.  Democracy,  as  we  all  know%  finds  its  definition,  its 
distinctive  characteristic,  its  foundation,  just  here.  It  affirms 
that  "  all  men  are  created  equal,  and  endowed  by  their  Creator 
with  certain  inalienable  rights,  among  w^hich  are  life,  liberty, 
and  the  pursuit  of  happiness."  This  statement  it  affirms  to  be 
"self-evident" — as  indeed  it  is,  if  the  foundation  fact  of  Chris- 
tianity, the  common  origin  and  essential  brotherhood  of  the  race 
be  admitted,  but  not  otherwise.  If  the  religions  of  heathenism 
be  as  credible  as  Christianity,  if  it  be  as  proper  to  believe  in 
twenty  gods  as  in  one  God,  in  twenty  creations  as  in  one  cre- 
ation, if  the  Mosaic  account  of  the  creation  of  man  and  of  the 
world  may  be  rejected  as  a  fable,  then  the  democratic  principle 
is  neither  selT-evident  nor  demonstrable,  and  the  far-famed 
"  declaration."  that   makes  it   so,  becomes  itself  a  falsehood. 


DEMOCRACY  OF  CHRISTIANITY.  19 

The  penman  of  that  declaration  may  liave  discredited  the  di- 
vine authority  of  the  Bible,  but  had  there  never  have  been 
such  a  book,  his  declaration  of  the  self-evident  truths  of  de- 
mocracy, most  probably  had  never  been  penned. 

Be  this  as  it  may,  the  facts  we  are  mainly  insisting  on 
remain  the  same.  Christianity,  or  the  religion  of  the  Bible,  is 
emphatically  and  distinctively,  the  religion  of  the  equal  and 
common  brotherhood  of  mankind,  '^^lis  feature  dist'no-uishes 
it  from  ail  other  religions.  And  this  feature  embodies  the 
only  solid  foundation  for  the  principle  of  democracy. 

From  this  foundation  fact  it  is  easy  to  deduce  not  only  the 
elementary  principle  of  democracy,  and  to  defend  it  against  all 
objections,  but  to  infer  likewise,  in  minute  detail,  all  the  peculiar 
forms,  distinctive  measures,  and  characteristic  policy  of  demo- 
cratic institutions,  whether  in  the  church  or  in  the  state.  Some 
illustrations  of  the  truth  of  this  statement  will  perhaps  appear 
as  we  proceed. 


CHAPTER  II. 

THE    FALL    OF    OUR    FIRST    PARENTS. 

The  next  great  fact  of  the  Christian  record,  after  the  creation 
and  common  brotherhood  of  man,  is  the  fall  of  our  first  parents 
from  the  state  of  innocency  and  moral  integrity  in  which  they 
were  originally  created.  How  much  the  whole  system  of  reli- 
gion contained  in  the  Bible  is  directly  or  indirectly  involved  in 
this  statement,  we  need  not  now  sav.  It  is  sufficient  to  ob- 
serve that  upon  any  exposition  that  can  be  made  of  the  Chris- 
tian doctrines,  the  fact  involved  in  the  statement  is  a  leading 
one ;  and  upon  the  expositions  most  commonly  received,  it  as- 
sumes a  position  altogether  vital. 

But  what  is  there  in  this  fact,  it  mav  be  asked,  that  can  con- 


20  DRMOCRACV   OF  CHRISTIANITV. 

nect  in  any  way  the  religion  of  the  Bible  with  the  principle  of 
democracy?      We  ansAver: 

1.  This  much,  at  least,  is  involved  in  it. — If  the  first  parents 
of  the  race  were  thus  plunged  in  guilt  and  shorn  of  their  original 
glory,  the  humiliating  fact  equally  concerns  the  entire  human 
family  bound  up  as  they  are  in  a  common  brotherhood,  and 
sharing  in  common  whatever  of  honor  or  of  dishonor,  of  dignity 
or  shame,  is  wrapped  up^n  the  circumstance  of  their  ancestry, 
a  circumstance  so  significant  in  the  broad  distinctions  of  society 
attempted  to  be  set  up  among  men.  If  the  pride  of  birth, 
race,  and  caste  can  not  be  cured  by  a  consideration  of  the  com- 
mon origin  of  all  men,  it  ought  at  least  to  be  chastened  by  a  re- 
collection that  the  highest  and  most  remote  (not  to  say  the  most 
honorable)  pedigree  that  the  proudest  can  trace,  centres  at  last 
with  the  pedigree  of  the  most  h  jimble,  at  a  point  in  which  the 
moral  defilement  and  ignominious  expulsion  of  their  ancestors 
from  their  original  family  mansion,  occupies  the  front  ground 
of  the  picture.  Let  aristocratic  arrogance  place  this  as  a  de- 
vice upon  its  boastful  escutcheon,  and  engrave  it  upon  its  coat 
of  arms ;  then  turn  and  see  the  same  memorial  upon  the  family 
pieces  of  the  most  menial  and  dependent,  the  most  degraded 
and  servile.  If  this  does  not  teach  the  lesson  of  democratic 
equality  and  common  brotherhood,  what  can?  Or  how  can 
any  one  enter  deeply  into  the  spirit  of  a  religion  which  begins 
its  authoratative  teachings  with  a  revelation  of  this  humiliating  fact 
as  a  pillar  of  its  system,  and  yet  continue  to  cherish  the  pride  of 
birth,  the  distinction  of  caste,  the  fancied  superiority  of  pedi- 
gree or  race  ?  Must  not  such  a  religion  so  far  as  it  is  cordially 
and  practically  embraced,  cast  down  all  such  vain  imagi- 
nations and  repress  all  the  proud  boastings  and  oppressive 
claims  that  grow  out  of  them?  In  Christian assembhes  where 
the  rich  and  the  poor  meet  together  to  worship  the  common 
Father  of  all,  the  great  fact  now  under  review  is  not  unfre- 
quently  recognized  by  singing  in  the  lines  of  Watts: 

*'     ackwanl  with  homl.Ic  shame  we  look 
On  our  original — "  tfec. 

How  can  the  autocrat,  the  claimant  of  distinction  and  honor 


DEMOCRACY  OF  CHRISTIANITY.  21 


on  the  oToimd  of  birth,  caste,  pedigree,  race,  or  blood,  stand 
up  in  the  presence  of  God  and  of  his  fellow  men,  and  give  ut- 
terance to  sentiments  like  these  -without  feeling  the  incongruity 
of  his  position,  and  blushing  for  the  hollowness  of  his  pre- 
tensions ? 

2.  But  this  is  not  all.  The  transgression  and  punishment  of 
our  first  parents  as  commonly  understood  by  the  reverent  read- 
ers of  the  Bible,  were  connected  in  some  way,  and  to  some  ex- 
tent, with  the  condition,  the  character,  and  the  prospects  of  the 
entire  race  of  rational  and  immortal  beings  who  sprang  from 
them.  And  here  we  shall  have  no  occasion  to  thrust  forward  as 
data  the  expositions  or  the  theories  of  any  particular  school. 
The  out->standing  and  admitted  facts  of  the  case  are  sufficient 
for  all  the  purposes  of  the  present  treatise.  Some  say,  "  all 
mankind,  descending  from  Adam  by  ordinary  generation,  sin- 
ned in  him  and  fell  with  him  in  his  first  transgression,"  and  thus 
*'the  fall  of  our  first  parents  brought  all  mankind  into  a  state 
of  sin  and  misery."  Others  who  can  not  understandingly  admit 
this  statement  nor  see  that  it  is  contained  in  the  Bible,  conceive 
nevertheless  that  a  corrupt  nature  ^vas  transmitted  from  Adam 
to  his  posterit3\  This  view^,  at  one  time  nearly  exploded  in 
some  sects  that  had  held  it,  has  lately  been  revived  in  substance 
by  certain  writers  on  physiology,  who  teach  on  what  are  claim- 
ed to  be  scientific  principles,  the  hereditary  propagation  of  moral 
as  well  as  physical  propensities  and  qualities  on  the  analogy  of 
he  animal  and  vegetable  kingdoms  that  "like  produces  like." 
There  are  others  in  distinction  from  the  preceding,  who  hold 
that  according  to  a  divine  constitution  and  independently  of  phy- 
sical causes,  God  suspended  the  moral  character  of  the  human 
family  upon  the  moral  conduct  of  Adam.  Others  insist  wi*h  Pe- 
lagius,  that  all  the  corruption  of  the  species  arises  from  their 
following  the  example  of  Adam,  and  coming  under  the  cor- 
rupt moral  influences  that  have  been  transmitted  from  age  to 
age  ever  since.  On  either  of  these  theories  the  fact  remains 
that  sin  entered  the  world  by  Adam,  and  in  consequence  of 
that  event  all  men  have  sinned. 

Without  committing  ourselves  to  either  one  of  these  theories. 


22  DEMOCRACY  OF  CHRISTIANITY. 

in  the  precise  forms  above  stated,  and  confessing  that  the  whole 
subject,  is  involved  in  the  obscurity  of  its  profound  depth  as 
compared  with  our  limited  knowledge,  we  have  only  to  open  our 
eyes  on  the  world  around  us  and  consult  the  page  of  universal 
history  to  find  all  the  facts  we  have  occasion  for  in  this  argument 
(perhaps  in  any  practical  inquiry)  and  in  a  shape  that  bids  defi- 
ance to  contradiction.  Man,  everywhere  and  in  all  ages,  is  a 
riddle — a  mystery,  the  study  of  which,  though  it  increases  our 
knowledge,  does  not  exhaust  the  subject.  All  exact  and  cona- 
prehensive  observers — all  earnest  and  deep  thinkers  have  been 
struck  with  the  monstrous  and  anomalous  character  of  man. 
His  dignity  and  his  degradation,  his  greatness  and  his  littleness, 
his  majesty  and  his  meaness  have  excited  admiration  and  disgust, 
veneration  and  pity.  His  noble  nature,  as  it  is  still  seen  to  be, 
though  obscured  and  in  ruins,  like  the  monuments  of  ancient  ar- 
chitecture, in  fragments  and  in  the  dust,  reveals  to  us  a  glimpse 
of  what  it  must  once  have  been,  when  man  first  came  from  the 
forming  hand  of  his  Maker.  His  noble  nature  as  contrasted 
with  his  abject  character  and  condition,  his  high  aspirations, 
his  groveUing  desires,  his  thirst  for  immortality,  his  speedy  dis- 
solution, his  far-reaching  capacities,  and  the  perverted  use  he 
copamonly  makes  of  them,  his  affinity  to  higher  orders  of  beings, 
his  voluntary  prostration  below  the  beasts  that  perish — all  these 
and  the  like  of  them — no  mere  dogmas  of  the  schools,  but  facts 
known  and  read  of  all  men — carry  our  thoughts  back  to  some 
point  of  human  history  in  which  a  sad  and  solemn  catastrophe 
must  have  taken  place,  in  which  man  fell  from  his  first  estate 
into  the  lamentable  condition  in  which  the  earliest  profane 
histories  find  him,  and  which  he  has  mainly  occupied  ever 
since. 

The  Bible  contains  the  only  clear  and  authentic  history  that 
has  come  down  to  us  of  this  wonderful  event.  Here  the  pro- 
found mystery  is  in  a  measure  solved,  the  leading  facts  of  the 
case  are  set  before  us,  and  the  general  bearing  of  them  disclo- 
sed :  "  In  Adam  all  die."  "  By  one  man  sin  entered  into  the 
world,  and  by  sin  death,  and  so  death  passed  upon  all  men,  for 
that  all   have  sinned."     Hotv  this  wns   done,  we  leave   the 


UEMOCRACr  OP  CHRISTTAKITY.  23 

schools  to  contest.  The  Christian  records  tell  us  it  was  done ; 
and  the  past  and  present  condition  of  the  race  bear  witness  to 
the  congruity  of  the  statement. 

Here  then  is  another  link  in  the  chain  of  the   historic  re- 
cords, Ihe  foundation  facts  of  the  Christian  revelation,  that  binds 
together  the  entire  species.     That  record  attests,  not  only  the 
common   origin   and  parentage  of  the  race,  and  the  common 
share  of  each  member  of  the  family  in  the  honor  and  the  dis- 
honor of  that  parentage ;  it  goes  farther  and  presents  to  us  in 
the  fall  of  our  first  parents,  the  prospective  character,  condition, 
and  destiny  of  the  species.     It  gives  us  to  understand  that  in 
an  important  sense  and  bearing  that  transaction  was  a  social,  a 
family  transaction,  by  which  the  entire  race  were  to  be  affected, 
in  all  their  generations,  to  the  end  of  time,  in  all  that  pertains 
to  their  most  vital  and   important  interests.     On   this  fact   it 
bases  that  entire  scheme  of  remedial  processes  and  influences 
through  successive  administrations  and  dispensations  and  reach- 
ing forward  to  the  advent  and  consummated  work  of  the  Mes- 
siah, the  Savior  of  men,  which  it  is  the  business  of  the  sacred 
writers,  one  after  another  and  in  due  chronological  order,  to  un- 
fold.    Whatever  the  Christian  scheme  of  redemption  propo- 
ses  or  proffers,  is  devised  and  designed  for  the  entire  family  of 
man ;  and  on  the  ground  that  each  branch  and  member  of  the 
family  is  part  and  parcel  of  one  and  the  same  lapsed  and  lost 
race,  in  need  of  a  "  second  Adam  "  to  restore  them  from  the  ruin 
occasioned  by  the  "first."     This  identity,  this  unity,   this  com- 
mon character   and  condition,  this  common  treatment,    disci- 
pline, probation,  and  moral  culture  of  the  race  in  consequence 
of  their  common  defection,  is  so  marked  a  feature  of  the  Chris- 
tian revelation,  considered  as  a  historical  record  of  God's  pro- 
gressive dealings  towards  them,  from  the  era  of  Adam  to  that  of 
Noah,  from  Noah  to  Abraham,  from  Abraham  to  Moses,  from 
Moses  to  Jesus  Christ,  that  if  you  reject  the  idea  of  a  common 
brotherhood  of  the  children  of  Adam,  and  their  common  par- 
ticipancy  in  the  moral  defection  commenced  by  him,  you  dis- 
credit the  whole  record,  and  reject  the  entire  system  of  reli- 
gion proposed  in  the  Seiiiptures. 


•24 


DEMOCRACY   OF  CHRISTIANITT. 


This  sad  and  guilty  brotherhood  in  sin  and  sorrow,  admit- 
ting of  no  exception,  from  the  despot  on  his  throne  to  the  cap- 
tive in  his  dungeon,  that  includes  the  rich  man  in  his  palace' 
and  the  beggar  on  the  dunghill,  the  wise  man  and  the  fpol,  the 
saint  and  the  reprobate,  that  transforms  this  otherAvise  beautiful 
and  glorious  Avorld  into  a  vale  of.  tears,  an  aceldema  of  blood, 
a  charnel  house  of  death — whatever  else  it  may  certify  or  be- 
token, tells  us,  at  least,  though  in  tones  of  lamentation,  this  one 
great  truth,  that  humanity  is^  one  and  indivisible,  that  the  blood 
of  a  common  ancestry  runs  in  all  human  veins,  that  the  charac- 
teristics of  a  common  human  nature,  marred,  broken,  disjointed 
as  it  may  be— as  it  must  have  been— as  the  Bible  tells  us  it 
was,  are  everywhere  visible ;  nay,  more,  that  in  the  main,  a  com- 
mon moral  character,  common  dispositions,  common  propensi- 
ties, common  susceptibilities  to  temptation,  common  lusts,  com- 
mon vices,  reign,  or  have  reigned,  with  incidental  variations, 
throughout  the  whole  family,  and  mark  the  members  as  es- 
sentially  one,  that  "  as  face  answereth  to  face  in  water,  so  the 
heart  of  man  to  man,"  insomuch  that  the  knowledge  of  man  in 
one  age  or  nation  is  the  knowledge  of  him  in  all  ao-es  and  ev- 
erywhere, the  knowledge  of  ourselves  is  the  knowledo-e  of  our 
neighbor,  the  mote  in  the  eye  of  a  brother  certifies  some  similar 
beam  in  our  own,  the  psychological  analysis  of  one  mind  an- 
swers for  all  minds,  and  the  remedy  provided  by  infinite  .vis- 
dom  for  the  salvation  of  the  worst  of  the  species  is  needed  also 
lor  the  best,  for  "they  are  all  under  sin." 

Christianity,  in  teaching  us  this,  as  she  does  in  the  simple 
story  of  the  fall  of  man  and  its  results,  teaches  one  of  her  most 
unwelcome  and  humiliating  lessons ;  but  in  doing  it,  she  teaches 
^hat  we  most  need  to  know,  to  feel,  and  to  incorporate  into  ev- 
ery fibre  and  texture  of  our  moral  existence,  in  order  either  to 
our  taking  our  proper  position  towards  our  Supreme  Lawo-iv- 
er  and  Savior  and  proffered  ^mcii^ev,  ox  towards  our  equal 
JeUow  men^  The  man  who  would  not  behave  arrogantly 
among  h,s  fellows,  saying  in  his  heart,  '' Stand  aside,  for  I  am 
hoher  thmi  thou"-who  would  not  take  a  position  of  elevation 
above  his  brethren  that  does  not  become  him.  in  other  words, 


DEMOCRACY    OF  CHRISTIANITY.  25 

who  would  honor  the  idea  of  human  equality,  in  all  the  rela- 
tions  of  life,  as  he  should  do,  must  study  profoundly  the  records 
and  diink  deeply  into  the  spirit  of  the  Christian  religion,  in  its 
revelation  of  the  common  and  universal  pollution  of  the  species, 
himself  not  excepted.     Not   to  do  this,  is  to  expose  one's  self 
to  the  danger  of  imbibing  the    aristocratic  spirit  in  one  of  its 
most  hateful  but  insidious  phases.       Not  to  learn  this  lesson 
is  to  deprive  ourselves   of  one  of  the   most   powerful   of ^  all 
weapons  in  assaihng  the  fortresses  of  spiritual  wickedness,  pride, 
and  despotism  in  high  places.     When  the  oppressors  of  their 
fellow  men  attempt  to  frame  apologies  for  their  injustice  and  ar- 
rogance bv  bringing  the  charges  of  vice,  ignorance,  and  degra- 
dation against  their  victims,  they  sh  .uld  be  made  to  feel  that 
the  charges,  however  true  they  may  be,  lie  also  against  them- 
selves.    Thev  should  be  shown  ihat  the  vices  and  degradation 
of  those  whom  they  thus  despise,  so  far   from  proving   their 
"  inferiority  "  are  only  the  sad  badges  of  their  "  equahty"— that 
instead  of  indicating  their   classification   with  some  "lower" 
order  of  beings  than  the  race  of  Adam,  those  characteristics 
are  only  their  unimpeachable  credentials  of  that  affinity  and  of 
their  common  brotherhood  with  their  oppressors.     The  most 
wronged  and  imbruted  portion  of  the  human  family  are  thus 
truthfully  and  eloquently  vindicated  by  one  of  our   Christian 

poets.* 

"  Is  he  not  wan,  though  Knowlecljie  never  shed  j 
Her  quickeui..^  bi-ain^s  on  his  negiecttd  head  ?  . 
Is  he  not  77ian,  ihough  sx^oet  liehji.oti's  voice 
IS  e'er  bade  liio  inoun.er  m  his  God  r.j  ..ce  i 
U  he  nut  man,  by  sm  and  sullenng  tried  ! 
Is  he  not  man,  for  whom  the  fe.v.or  di.  d  i\ 
B-lie  ihe  .Nejrro-s  power-  in  'y  ='•'»"§ ;^.;;~,,   , 
Lhrir^tiau  !  ihy  brother  ai-u  siiuU  p-ove  him  slill  ;, 
Belie  hi.-,  virtues  ;  .-^ince  Ids  wr..h^.-  be^'^"'  ,„ 

Bis  tollits  and  his  crimes  have  sltf.ni.id  him  M  B  rs  . 

The  well-instructed  and  thoroughly   experienced    Christian 

understands  and  feels  himself  to  be  nothing  better  than  a  sinner 

redeemed,  a  brand  plucked  from  the  burning,  who  while  admon- 

ishino-  others  must  needs  wrestle  and  agonize  to  keep  his  body 


*  Ja.no,  Montgomery .  in  his  poem-"  The  West  Indies." 


26  DEMOORACY  OPQHRISTIANITr. 

under,  lest  he  himself  should  become  a  cast-away.  Can  it  be 
befitting  such  an  one  to  play  the  hierarch  or  the  autocrat— to 
crowd  his  fellow- worms  and  fellow-sinners  off  from  the  platfomr 
of  our  common  probationary  humanity  where  Infinite  Wisdom 
and  Almighty  Love  and  forbearance  have  placed  them  for  the 
exercise  of  their  powers,  for  the  forming  of  their  characters— to 
do  this  on  the  plea  of  their  vices,  their  ignorance,  and  their 
degradation  ?  But  we  must  not  prematurely  anticipate  a  train 
of  reflections  which  were  better  reserved  for'  a  more  advanced 
stage  of  our  argument  and  in  companionship  with  other  important 
considerations. 

3.  The  fall  of  man  considered  in  still  another  aspect  holds 
forth  to  us  the  lesson  of  democracy  in  another  form.  The  fall 
of  Adam— the  fall  of  man— in  what  did  it  consist— what  was  it 
but  a  transgression  of  law?  The  law  of  equal  and  impartial 
love,  justice,  equity?  And  what  is  equity  but  equalitv,  and 
what  are  justice  and  love^but  manifestations  of  these  ?  Rather, 
what  are  equity  and  justice  but  manifestations  and  forms  of  im- 
partial and  disinterested  Love  ? 

Here,  again,  we  need  not  anticipate  further,  another  branch 
of  our  argument.      It  may  be  sufficient  now  to  say,  that  the 
fall  of  man,  while  the  fact  and  its  results  exhibit  proofs  of  the 
original  and  essential  unity  of  the  species,  was  in  itself,  (and 
in  its  known  results  it  involved,  as  it  could  not  but  do,)  a  fla- 
grant violation  of  the  laia  of  an  universal  and  common  brother- 
hood, for  that  law  is  Love.     In  rebelling  against  his  Maker, 
man  made  war  upon  humanity,  the  child  of  God,  did  violence 
to  himself,  and  laid  the  foundation  of  estrangement  and  hostility 
between  man  and  man.     As  he  that  loves   not    his   brother 
loves  not  the  father  that  begat  him,  so  that  he  that   loves  not 
God  loves  not  his  brother  who  was  begotten  of  him.     God  him- 
self is  ihQ  Great  Head  and  Father  of  the  human  family,  and 
an  estrangement  from  Him  involved,  of  course,  an  estrangement 
of  the  equal  brethren  of  the  family  from  each  other.     So  the 
Bible  teaches  us,  and  so  its  recorded  facts  testif)\     Among  the 
first  fruits  of  the  fall  were  the  most  appalling  violations  of  equal 
brotherhood  and  inalienable  human  rights.     Even  the  right  to 


DEMOCRACY  OF  CHRISTIANITY.  27 

life  was  disregarded  by  the  first  born  of  the  lapsed  race.  "  Cain 
rose  up  against  Abel,  his  brother,  and  slew  him."  "And  where- 
fore slew  he  him  ?  Because  his  own  works  were  evil,  and  his 
brother's  righteous."  The  element  of  unrighteousness  having 
been  introduced  into  human  society,  human  brotherhood  was 
violated. and  its  inalienable  rights  outraged,  of  course. 

In  other  words,  the  fall  of  man,  the  sin,  the  transgression  of 
law,  the  moral  corruption  of  the  race,  (the  depravity  of  man,  if 
we  use  that  term)  of  which  the  Bible  and  the  Christian  theology  so 
much  treat,  involves  and  includes  the  violation  of  those  principles 
of  equality,  common  human  brothei'hood,  and  inalienable  rights*- 
Avhich  he  at  the  basis  of  everything  that  can  be  called  democra- 
tic, whether  in  theory  or  in  practice.  Had  man  never  fallen 
from  his  original  integrity,  had  man  never  sinned,  there  never 
could  have  been  any  violation  of  those  principles.  They  would 
always  have  been  held  inviolably  sacred,  and  would  have  con- 
trolled all  the  arrangements  and  activities  of  men.  And  what 
is  this  but  saying  that  those  principles  are  in  accordance  with 
the  mind  and  will  of  God,  that  they  are  emenations  from  Him, 
that  they  are  stamped  with  His  authority,  that  they  live  and 
manifest  themselves  in  His  law,  that  they  are  comprised  in  the 
rule  or  model  upon  which  our  common  humanity,  as  it  came  from 
His  forming  hand,  was  originally  constructed  ?  That  the  viola- 
tion of  these  principles  is  rebellion  against  God  ?  What  higher 
sanction  conld  Christianity  give  to  democracy  than  this? 

The  inspired  record  informs  us  that  the  Satanic  temptation 
that  took  effect  with  our  first  parents,  was  the  supposed  prospect 
of  becoming  gods,  of  rising  above  the  level  of  that  human  na- 
ture in  which  it  was  their  privilege  and  glory  to  participate. 
The  fall  was  simultaneous  with  the  entrance  of  ambition  and 
pride,  the  very  essence  of  every  thing  that  is  anti- democratic, 
from  age  to  age. 

The  grand  motive-spring  of  every  autocratic  aspiration  and 
aristocratic  arrangement  has  always  been  this  same  desire  to 
become  gods,  and  rise  above  the  common  level  of  humanity 
where  the  Creator  has  placed  each  one  of  us.  Such  arrange- 
ments and  aspirations  wherever  witnessed  are  the  standing  and 


28  DEMOCRACY  OF  OHRISTlANITy. 

sufficient  monimients  of  the  fall  of  man,  and  of  the  authenticity 
and  accuracy  of  the  Bible  account  of  it. 


CHAPTER  III. 

•  THE  ANTEDELUVIANS  AND  THE  DELUGE. 

Of  "  the  world  before  the  flood  "we  know  nothing  except 
■  from  the  Scriptures.  The  brevity  of  the  record  may  assure  us 
that  the  facts  noted  were  deemed  of  special  importance.  If 
those  facts  shall  furnish  any  information  on  the  topic  of  our 
inquiry,  we  may  infer  that  the  record  may  have  been  given  Avith 
a  reference  among  other  things  to  that  end.  Or  if  the  informa- 
tion were  purely  incidental,  it  could  not  be  the  less  valuable  on 
that  account: 

"  And  God  saw  that  the  wickedness  of  man  was  great  in  the 
earth,  and  that  every  imagination  of  the  thoughts  of  his  heart 
was  only  evil  continually.  And  it  repented  the  Lord  that  he 
had  made  man  on  the  earth,  and  it  grieved  him  at  his  heart. 
And  the  Lord  said,  I  will  destroy  man  from  the  face  of  the 
earth."  *  *  *  "  But  Noah  found  grace  in  the  eyes  of  the 
Lord."  *  *  *  Noah  was  a  just  man,  and  perfect  in  liis 
generations,   and  Noah  walked  with  God."  *         *         * 

The  earth  also  was  corrupt  before  God;  and  the  earth  was 
Ailed  with  violence.  And  God  looked  upon  the  earth,  and  behold 
it  was  corrupt,  for  all  flesh  had  corrupted  his  way  upon 
the  earth.  And  God  said  unto  Noah,  the  end  of  all  tlesh  is 
come  before  me,  for  the  earth  is  filled  with  violence  through 
them,  and  behold  1  will  destroy  them  with  the  earth."  "^ 

This  period  of  the  world,  so  remarkable  for  its  universal  and 
extreme  wickedness,  was  equally  remarkable  it  seems  for  its  uni- 
versal and  extreme  contempt  and  reckless  invasion  of  inalienable 
human  rights.  The  latter  is  put  down  in  the  Sacred  record  as 
a  particular  and  appropriate  specification,  to  prove  and  illus- 
trate the  general  allegation  of  the  former. 


nFMOCRAOY  OF  rURISTIANITV'.  2P 

This  specification  is  made  emphatic  by  its  repetition,  in 
whicli  tliat  particular  form  of  -wickedness  is  singled  out  and 
declared  to  constitute  the  specific  ground  or  reason  of  the 
divine  determination  to  cut  off  the  inhabitants  of  the  earth,  re- 
serving only  the  famil}-  of  one  who  could  be  characterised  as 
a  "just  man,"  one  who  regarded  the  equal  rights  of  his 
neighbor. 

No  doubt  Noah  was  a  man  of  prayer  and  had  been  in  the 
habit  of  offering  sacrifices  as  Abel  before  him  had  done,  and 
as  he  is  recorded  to  have  done  after  the  flood ;  and  elsewhere 
we  read  of  his  having  been  a  "  preacher  of  righteousness."  But 
by  neither  of  these  was  he  minutely  characterised  when  the 
reason  was  to  be  given  why  on  this  occasion  he  "  found  grace 
in  the  sight  of  the  Lord."  He  is  simply  described  as  "  a  just 
man,"  perfect  in  his  generations,  and  walking  with  Godt  He  was 
distinguished  as  a  man  of  equity,  who  regarded  the  rights  of  his 
equal  brethren,  a  man  of  integrity  in  tlie  generation  to  which  he 
belonged ;  doing  justice  and  walking  humbly  with  God.  Whether 
the  mass  of  the  community  around  him  offered  sacrifices 
and  prayers  we  are  not  told.  They  may  have  been  as  zealous 
in  this  direction  as  were  the  Hebrews  in  the  time  of  Isaiah,  and 
whose  "vain  oblations"  and  prayers  Jehovah  spurned.  Or 
they  may  have  been  bold  blasphemers  and  scoffers  who  denied 
the  existence  of  a  God.  More  probably  the  two  classes  were 
commingled,  and  worshippers  of  graven  images  may  have 
added  to  their  company.  We  know  not.  It  matters  not.  Divine 
wisdom  has  not  thought  it  necessary,  by  the  addition  of  a  sin- 
gle sentence  or  clause  of  a  sentence  to  infoi-m  us.  That  knowl- 
edge God  could  afford  to  withhold,  while  taking  care  to  tell  us 
by  significant  repetitions  that  the  world  thus  "  filled  "  with  vio- 
lations of  common  brotherhood  and  equal  rights  could  no  longer 
be  tolerated  in  his  presence,  but  must  be  overwhelmed  and 
purged  by  a  general  deluge. 

Let  us  not  be  misunderstood.  We  do  not  say  that  oppression 
or  violence  Avas  the  only  sin  for  which  the  antedeluvian  world 
was  destroyed.  We  merely  say  it  Avas  the  prominent  sin  by 
which  the  measure  of  its  iniquities  was  filled  and  its  doom  seal- 


30  DEMOCRACY    OF  OHRISTIANITT. 

ed.  The  record  attests  this,  and  in  doing  so  bears  testimony  to 
the  sacredness  and  inviolabihty,  in  God's  sight,  of  inahenable 
human  rights.  In  other  language,  the  foundation  principle  that  a^ 
firms  the  equal  rights  of  all  men  was  practically  banished  from  the 
Old  World,  and  for  that  particular  form  of  human  wickedness  the 
old  world  was  drowned.    Blot  out  or  evade  the  record  who  can ! 

AN  OBJECTION  AND  THE  ANSWER. 

It  may  excite  the  surprise  of  some  that  the  claims  of  the 
democratic  principle  should  be  thus  urged  in  this  connexion. 
They  have  known  the  personal  rights  of  men,  as  they  are  call- 
ed, protected  under  forms  of  government  widel}?-  differing  from 
the  democratic.  They  have  known  the  most  flagrant  viola- 
tions of  those  rights  to  be  perpetrated  and  sheltered  under 
governments  called  democracies,  and  shaped  to  a  great 
extent  iq  accordance  with  democi-atic  maxims.  They  have 
found  among  the  administrators  and  advocates  of  monar- 
archical  and  aristocratic  institutions  the  champions  of  the 
oppressed,  whose  philanthropic  efforts  have  procured  for 
them  a  world  wide  and  enduring  fame  ;  Avhile  (to  use 
the  words  of  the  aristocratic  Dr.  Johnson)  '•'  the  loudest  yelps 
for  liberty  and  democratic  equality  come  from  those  who  hold 
slaves."  And  hence  they  think  it  wrong  to  claim  for  democra- 
cy the  exclusive  guardianship  of  human  rights ;  nor  can  they 
feel  the  force  of  the  argument  that  deduces  a  divine  vindication 
of  democracy  from  the  overthrow  of  the  lawless  oppressors  and 
depredators  of  the  old  world,  by  the  flood. 

We  state  this  objection  thus  early  in  our  discussion,  that  its 
pertinancy  may  be  examined  and  understood.  If  the  objection 
be  vaUd  against  this  item  of  our  aigument,  it  will  be  equally 
valid  against  others  that  we  propose  to  introduce ;  and  we  may 
as  well  meet  it  here,  once  for  all. 

It  is  witli  the  'principles  of  democracy  (as  well  as  of  Chris- 
tianity) find  with  the  obvious  demands  of  those  principles  that 
we  have  to  do  in  this  discussion,  not  with  the  inconsistencies, 
whether  happy  or  unhappy,  of  erring  and  inconsistent  men,  and 
of  the  mixed,  heterogeneous,  an(J  oft-times  misnamed  and  ab- 
ortive institutions  they  have  patched  up  and  administered. 


DEMOORAOi'  OF  OHRIRTIANITY.  31 

There  are  so  called  democracies  that  in  many  respects  are 
most  outrageously  and  notoriously  anti-democratic,  just  as 
there  are  so  called  Christian  institutions  embracing  many  things 
obviously  anti-christian.  We  are  reasoning  about  things,  not 
mere  names.  From  few  aristocracies,  or  monarchies,  or  even 
despotisms,  has  the  democratic  principle  been  wholly  excluded ; 
nor  is  it  easy  to  see  how  it  could  be, unless  human  nature  were 
excluded  likewise.  Wherever  man  is,  the  fact  of  his  exist- 
ence has  to  be  in  some  form  recognized ;  and  the  same  statute- 
book  that  stamps  him  a  "  chattel  "  is  forced  for  certain  purposes 
to  recognize  him  as  a  "person." 

Wherever  any  of  the  riglits  of  man  are  recognized,  there  the 
foundation  principle  of  democracy  to  the  same  extent  is  recog- 
nized. Let  the  government,  however  despotic,  that  protects 
any  one  of  the  essential  rights  of  humanity,  only  proceed  to 
carry  out  that  same  principle,  in  every  direction,  in  all  the  de- 
tails of  the  government — its  structure  and  its  administration — 
and  the  government  becomes  democratic  of  necessity,  and 
ceases  to  be  any  thing  else.  So  on  the  other  hand,  the  de- 
mocracy, however  free  in  its  general  features,  that  permits  or 
perpetrates  any  one  form  of  oppression  or  injustice,  has  only 
to  carry  out  that  same  principle  of  oppression  or  injustice — as 
it  will  be  likely  to  do — first  in  one  direction  and  then  in  an- 
other, and  it  loses  at  last  its  democratic  character  altoQ-ether 
and  becomes  a  despotism.  We  need  not  look  far  for  illustrations 
of  this  truth. 

If  there  are  oppressors  who  clamor  for  liberty  and  democracy, 
the  world,  and  especially  the  opponents  of  democracy,  are  for- 
ward to  see  their  inconsistency,  and  point  the  finger  of  scorn 
at  them,  as  did  Dr.  Johnson.  Just  so  the  enemies  of  Chris- 
tianity are  ready  to  detect  and  expose  as  inconsistencies  the 
vices  of  its  professors.  In  both  cases,  and  equally,  the  intend- 
ed shaft  becomes  a  commendation  of  the  system  assailed.  If 
Christianity  were  not  pure,  its  opponents  would  not  deride  the 
inconsistency  of  its  impure  professors.  And  if  democracy 
were  not  the  known  antagonist  of  oppression  and  exponent 
of  inalienable  human  rights,  the  sneering  paragraphs  levelled 


32  DEMOORAOY  OF  CIIRISTrANITV. 

against  democratic  oppression  would  never  have  been  pen- 
ned. 

As  to  those  autocrats  -who  in  certain  directions  or  to  a  given 
extent  have  been  protectors,  or  those  administrators  or  advo- 
cates of  aristocratic  arrangements  who  have  won  garlands  of 
fame  for  their  philanthropy,  and  for  their  espousing  in  certain 
instances  or  directions  the  cause  of  the  oppressed,  let  them 
reap  all  the  honors  or  rewards  that  belong  to  them.  Two 
things  however  in  respect  to  them  let  us  understand,  and  thus 
avoid  being  misled.  So  far  as  they  have  protected  men's 
rights,  or  urged  the  claims  of  humanity,  or  pleaded  the  cause 
of  the  oppressed,  so  far  they  have  bowed  down  to  the  funda- 
mental principle  of  democracy  and  done  it  homage — the  prin- 
ciple of  equal  human  brotherhood  and  inalienable  rights;  and 
just  so  far  as  they  have  played  the  autocrat,  or  administered 
or  advocated  the  arrangements  of  aristocracy,  just  so  far  they 
have  violated  the  principles  of  philanthropy  and  equity,  which 
in  other  particulars  they  had  honored,  have  become  oppressors 
themselves,  as  inconsistent  as  those  who  advocate  the  principles 
of  democracy  while  they  trample  their  fellows  in  the  dust.  A 
Doctor  Johnson  upholding  with  successive  strokes  of  his  strong 
pen  those  despotic  and  unequal  arrangements  under  which  his 
own  country  and  their  dependencies,  even  then,  were  ground 
down  to  the  dust — and  under  which  they  continue  still  to  be 
overborne — and  yet  taunting  the  democratic  holders  of  slaves, 
was  unconsciously  drawing  his  own  portrait  when  he  drew 
theirs.  And  even  a  Wilberforce  supporting  constantly  by  his 
vote  in  the  British  parliament  the  intolerably  oppressive  ad- 
ministration of  Pitt,  was  but  placing  himself  in  sad  contrast 
with  the  Wilberforce  who  in  the  same  parliament  urged  for- 
ward the  interdiction  of  the  African  slave-trade,  well-intended 
to  be  sure,  though  abortive. 

So  far  as  either  Johnson  or  Wilberforce  acted  against  shive- 
ry, they  acted  on  the  principles  of  democracy  and  of  Christian- 
ity, and  acted  right.  So  far  as  they  acted  in  support  of  the 
oppressive  administration  of  the  government  of  their  own 
country,  so  ftir  they  acted  against  both  democracy  and   Chris- 


UtMOCJKAOl    OF  OUKISTJAMTV.  '63 

tianity,  and  acted  wrong.  Had  Wilberforce  applied  to  slavery 
itself  in  the  British  West  Indies  and  to  the  home  oppressions  of 
the  British  government,  the  same  principles  of  democracy  and 
of  Christianity  that  he  applied  only  to  the  African  slave  trade, 
his  favorite  measure  might  have  been  a  reality  to-day  instead 
of  an  illusion,  and  his  own  country  as  w^ell  as  Africa  might  have 
reaped  the  benefit  of  his  labors.  What  good  he  did  was  the 
result  of  his  democracy — what  he  failed  to  do  is  t«)  be  charged 
to  his  want  of  fidelity  to  the  democratic  principle. 

We  claim  for  the  Christian  religion  that  among  its  funda- 
mental principles  are  justice,  equity,  and  righteousness.  This 
claim  we  vindicate  by  a  reference  among  other  things  to  the 
Christian  records,  in  which  we  are  informed  that  for  their  uni- 
versal and  intolerable  violation  of  these  principles,  the  inhabi- 
tants of  the  old  world  were  destroyed  by  a  general  deluge. 
And  we  do  not  abate  one  whit  of  the  claim  in  consequence  of 
the  plea  that  some  who  repudiate  the  Christian  religion  have 
shown,  in  some  directions,  regard  more  or  less  significant  for 
equity,  righteousness,  and  justice. 

In  like  manner  we  claim  that  that  the  foundation  principles 
of  democracy  are  equity,  justice,  inalienable  rights.  We 
claim  its  unity  with  Christianity  in  this  particular,  and  refer 
to  the  Christian  record  of  the  deluge  in  proof  that  the  foun- 
dation principles  of  democracy  were  vindicated  by  the  divine 
Author  of  that  record,  in  that  terrible  visitation.  Nor  is  our 
claim  to  be  invalidated  by  the  plea  that  some  who  repudiate 
democracy  have  rendered  a  partial  homage  to  its  principles. 
The  cases  are  parallel — they  are  essentially  one,  and  what 
Christianity  claims  in  the  case,  democracy  may  claim  also ; 
for  the  latter  is  only  one  particular  phase  or  application  of 
the  former. 

And  the  claim  is  pertinently  urged  here,  because  many  who 
profess  to  venerate,  to  teach  and  to  exemplify  Christianity 
affect  in  doing  so,  to  move  in  a  sphere  too  seraphic  to  be  in- 
truded upon  by  any  of  the  homely  duties  growing  out  of  the 
claims  of  inalienable  human  rights.  The  Bib'p  and  the  Chris- 
tian  religion,  they  would  have  it  understood,  are   otherwise 


34  DEMOCRACY    OF  CHRISTIANITY. 

occupied,  and  have  little  to  do  in  their  teachings  with  secular 
objects  like  these.  We  point  them  to  the  Scripture  record  of 
the  deluge.  We  bid  them  ponder  the  spectacle  of  a  world  de- 
stroyed on  account  mainly  of  the  general  and  wide-spread  vi- 
olation of  those  rights.  And  we  ask  whether  a  principle  so 
precious  in  the  sight  of  God  does  not  demand  their  profound 
homao-e  and  reverent  reo-ard. 

o  o 

Not  to  understand  lessons  like  those  wrapped  up  in  the  story 
of  the  deluge,  were  to  read  the  Christian  records  to  little  pur- 
pose. And  it  were  in  vain  to  institute  a  comparison  betsveen 
Christianity  and  democracy  unless  we  can  look  sufficiently  be- 
low the  surfaces  and  beyond  the  names  of  things  to  see  the 
principle  of  democracy  vindicated  by  that  retribution. 

NO    RECORD    OF    ANTEDELUVIAN    GOVERNMENTS. 

We  do  not  mean  to  sa}:-  however,  nor  does  our  argument 
require  it,  that  the  violence  which  characterized  so  signally 
the  world  before  the  flood,  was  organized  and  wielded  by 
oppressive  and  despotic  governments  in  any  extended  or  per- 
manent form.  A  general  anarchy,  the  local  and  predatory  rule 
of  the  stronger  over  the  weaker,  would  equally  or  still  more 
signally  mark  the  disregard  of  a  common  brotherhood,  the  ut- 
ter forgetfulness  of  equal  and  inalienable  rights. ,  For  what 
is  anarchy  but  a  localized,  everywhere  present,  capricious, 
and  irresponsible  despotism?  Or  what  is  a  great  and  over- 
shadowing despotism,  forcing  nation  after  nation  into  the  am- 
ple folds  of  Its  widely-extended  empire,  but  this  same  anar- 
chy operating  in  a  wider  field,  and  from  the  necessity  of  the 
case,  or  its  own  convenience,  reducing  itself  somewhat  more 
into  a  system,  and  doing  its  deadly  work  by  something  resem- 
bling method?  Lawlessness  is  equally  the  characteristic  of 
botli,  for  the.guardian  of  liberty  is  Law ;  and  law^  finds  its  home 
and  its  definition  nowhere  but  in  the  bonds  of  an  universal 
brotherhood,  the  claims  of  equality  or  equity,  the  demands  of 
inherent  and  inalienable  rights,  identical  with  the  principle 
of  democracy  and  the  genius  of  the  Christian  religion. 

From  nothing  in  the  sacred  record  can  we  infer  even  the 
existence  of  anything  like  political  institutions  before  the  del- 


DEMOCRACY  OF  CHRISTIANITY.  35 

uge.  We  claim  for  civil  government  a  divine  origin,  and  the 
later  Scriptures  expressly  sanction  the  statement.  But  Heav- 
en-established institutions  bear  not,  of  necessity,  equal  dates. 
The  methods  of  divine  culture  for  the  benefit  of  our  lapsed 
race,  have  been  progressive.  No  fact  on  the  sacred  records 
can  be  more  palpable  than  this.  Even  the  Christian  Church, 
properly  so  called,  and  in  its  most  improved  form,  is  the 
most  recent  of  all  in  its  origin,  having  been  institu- 
ted but  about  eighteen  centuries  ago.  An  earlier  church, 
in  another  form,  was  instituted  in  the  time  of  Moses  and  Aa- 
ron. The  germ  of  this  commenced  in  the  family  of  Abra- 
ham, before  which  time  it  seems  not  to  have  had  any  or- 
ganized existence  beyond  the  bounds  of  each  family  circle, 
or  distinguishable  from  it.  It  need  be  no  matter  of  sur- 
prise that  civil  institutions,  considered  as  gifts  and  ordi- 
nances of  Heaven,  should  have  been  equally  gradual  and 
progressive  in  their  development,  and  that  no  traces  of 
their  existence  and  no  r-ecord  of  the  institution  of  them, 
appear  in  the  brief  annals  of  the  antedeluvians.  The  fam- 
ily, the  primeval  institution  appears  to  have  stood  alone 
during  this  period,  in  process  of  experiment,  so  to  speak, 
and  to  prove  whether  or  no  the  depths  of  human  debasement 
and  corruption,  at  war  with  all  that  was  precious  in  our 
common  humanity  and  the  holy  brothorhood  of  the  race, 
were  an  over-match  for  its  divine  powers.  That  experi- 
ment had  its  termination  in  the  deluge.  The  problem  had 
been  solved,  and  that  catastrophe  was  the  monument  of 
the  solution. 

This  view  harmonizes  with  the  remarkable  fact  that  the 
first  murderer  was  visited  only  with  providential  visita- 
tions and  sucff  results  of  his  wrong  doing  as  came  with- 
out the  intervention  of  penal  inflictions  at  the  hands  of  his 
fellow  men.  And  when  he  feared  summary  vengeancj 
from  them,  the  great  Supreme  Lawgiver  who  had  just 
pronounced  sentence  in  another  form  upon  him,  interfered 
with  a  solemn  interdiction  of  any  such  manifestation  on 
their  part.     Had  it  been  intended  to  make  this  case  an  ex 


36  DEiVlOCKACY    UF    CKlSTIANITV. 

ception  to  the  general  rule,  theti  would  have  been  the  time 
and  that  the  fitting  occasion  for  the  promulgation  of  that 
rule.  .If  only  private  revenge  was  interdicted,  we  might 
look  for  some  provision  for  an  authorized  public  punish- 
ment of  such  crimes,  at  least  by  imprisonment,  if  not  death. 
But  nothing  of  the  kind  appears  on  the  record,  which 
seems  unaccountable,  if  so  important  an  institution  as  civ- 
il  government  had  been  given  to  the  antedeluvians. 

On  any  other  hypothesis,  the  lenity  extended  to  Cain 
appears  anomalous,  contrasting  strangely  with  the  coun- 
ter  injunction  upon  Noah,  and  afterwards  re-enacted 
through  Moses.  But  if  God  determined  to  draw  out  and 
exhibit  the  tendencies  of  human  character  while  unre- 
strained by  the  operations  of  civil  government,  during  the 
aiitedeluvian  period,  the  transaction  is  easily  explained  in 
the  light  of  that  experiment,  which  was  made  under  the 
double  advantage  of  the  freshness  of  the  family  institu- 
tion then  just  set  in  operation,  and  the  lono-  term  of  life 
during  which  parents  and  their  children  and  children's 
children,  to  many  generations,  lived  together  and  felt  and 
saw  daily  the  bonds  of  close  affinity  by  which  all  who  then 
lived  on  the  earth  were  bound  together  in  one  great  fam- 
ily, the  first  parent  of  whom  lived  nine  hundred  and  thir- 
ty years,  that  fact  precluding  the  possibility  of  their  ima- 
gining or  pretending  different  or  superior  or  inferior  ra- 
ces of  men,  some  born  to  control,  and  others  born  to  sub- 
mit. Adam  lived  more  than  one  half  of  the  entire  period 
from  his  creation  to  the  deluge,  and  until  within  126  years 
of  the  birth  of  Noah.  Methusaleh,  who  was  243  years 
cotemporary  with  Adam,  lived  until  the  very  year  of  the 
deluge.  The  factoi  the  common  origin t>f  the  human 
familjr,  one  might  thinlc,  could  hardly  have  been  forgotten, 
however  lamentably  the  spirit  o(  equal  brotherhood  was 
lost  and  its  claims  disregarded. 

If  it  be  true,  as  it  seems  to  be,  that  the  Creator  institu- 
ted nothing  like  civil  government  before  the  deluge,  and 
that   neither    human    ing^enuity     nor   human   nocessitiet 


DEMOCRACY  OF  CHKISTIANITY .  37 

during  that  long  period,  so  rife  with  anarchy  and  violence, 
suggested  or  provided  any  such  safeguard,  the  circum- 
stance furnishes  matter  of  profound  reflection,  and  sug- 
gests answers  to  some  important  questions  concerning 
civil  government  in  general  and  the  democratic  polity  in 
particular,  which  it  seems  desirable  to  understand. 

The  feasibility  of  civilized  societj^  and  the  safe  enjoy- 
ment of  rights  without  the  intervention  of  civil  govern- 
ment, in  the  present  condition  of  human  character,  it  must 
be  conceded,  does  not  seem  very  promising.  Mankind 
should  be  slow,  in  the  light  of  the  antedeluvian  records,'to 
adventure  upon  that  experiment  over  again,  or  until  moral 
influences  become  more  effectual  than  at  present. 

On  the  other  hand  the  extreme  backwardness,  so  to 
speak,  of  the  all-wise  and  benevolent  Father  to  entrust 
man  with  the  authority  of  wielding  penal  law  over  his 
fellow-man,  is  little  less  creditable  to  the  species.  Or  per- 
haps we  may  conclude  that  the  individuality  and  separate 
accountability  of  each  and  every  member  of  the  human 
family  personally  to  the  one  Great  Judge,  was  a  principle 
of  administration  so  important  in  his  sight,  that  he  would 
not  even  seem  to  trench  upon  it  by  making  man  the  ad- 
ministrator of  penal  law,  and  thus  subjecting  man  to  his 
equal  brother,  until  the  actual  experiment  should  have 
vindicated,  in  the  sight  of  the  intelligent  universe,  the^wis- 
dom  and  even  the  necessity  of  doing  so. 

It  will  be  noticed,  farther,  that  these  views  of  the  ante- 
deluvian records  do  not  much  favor  the  common  notion 
that  civil  government  is  altogether  of  human  origin — 
that  man  devised  it,  or  that  it  can  legitimately  rest  upon 
the  basis  of  mere  compact,  or  that  it  has  its  foundation  in 
the  supposed  right  of  self-defence,  which,  it  is  said,  arms 
every  man  with  a  weapon  to  save  his  own  life,  by  taking 
away  in  advance  the  life  of  his  assailant,  (as  though  he 
might  value  his  own  life  higher  than  his  neighbors)  a  right 
which,  in  the  aggregate  of  community,  is  supposed  to  em- 
power it,  without  any  special  divine   vmrrant^    to   take  the 


38  DEMOCRACY  OF  CHRISTIAIVITY. 

lite  of  the  murderer,  to  preserve  life.  If  such  were  the 
original  and  necessary  rights  of  humanity — if  such  be  the 
true  oricrin  and  foundation  of  a  righteous  civil  government 
how  comes  it  to  pass  that  no  traces  of  sueh  a  govern- 
ment, nor  of  the  divine  recognition  or  institution  of  it  ap- 
pears during  the  sixteen  and  an  half  centuries  precedmg 
the  deluge'?  And  why,  in  the  absence  of  all  this,  do  we 
have  preserved  to  us  the  inspired  record  of  the  divine  veto 
upon  any  such  procedure,  in  the  case  of  Cain  and  with  no 
intimation  that  the  case  was  a  peculiar  exception  1  Where 
was  this  boasted  right  of  self-defence,  in  the  indiv'idual 
and  in  the  community,  during  the  long  period  of  this  di- 
vine interdict,  and  while  violence  was  abroad  in  the  earth? 
Or  are  we  to  infer  that  it  was  durinfr  the  free  exercise  of 
this  right,  (with  or  without  a  divine  interdict)  that  the 
earth,  notwithstanding  the  supposed  potency  of  this  right, 
went  on  increasing  in  violence  until  it  ripened  for  the 
deluge  1 

And  then,  what  becomes  of  the  confident  affirmation  of 
many,  tbat  the  ground  and  necessity  of  civil  government 
lies  not  in  human  ciHme,  but  in  human  nature,  as  God 
formed  it — that  man's  wants  in  a  state  of  virtue  would  re- 
vtxi'ire  it — that  the  masses  of  mankind,  even  then,  and  in 
the  absence  of  crime,  would  need  in  their  ordinary  con- 
cerns the  authoritative  oversight  and  compulsocy  control 
of  the  gifted  few,  who  alone  are  competent  to  direct  them  1 
If  this  be  so,  why  did  God  neglect  to  institute  civil  gov- 
ernment before  the  flood — nay,  before  the  fall  and  the  expul- 
sion from  Eden,  when  the  family  institution  was  founded  1 

And  if  a  Heaven-anointed  few,  as  some  say,  are  divinely 
commissioned,  at  least  in  the  present  state  of  humanity, 
to  wield  the  sword  of  the  magistrate  without  the  suft>ages 
of  their  brethren,  because  they  are  the  wisest  and  best,  and 
because  the  wrongs  of  humanity  require  at  all  events  this 
sacred  service  at  their  hands,  how  shall  we  account  for 
the  silence  of  the  antedeluvian  records  in  respect  to  their 
commission  1     Nay,  rather,  how  shall  we  account  for  their 


DEMOCRACY   OF  CHRISTIAMTY.  39 

not  being  silent  in  respect  to  the  divine  veto  in  the  case  of 
Cain  upon  any  attempted  exercise  of  such  a  supposed  com- 
mission,existing  as  we  are  told  in  the  very  nature  of  things'? 

Where  was  Adam  all  this  time,  who  lived  nine  hundred 
and  thirty  j^ears,  and  chiefly  amid  these  scenes  of  vio- 
lence ?  Where  was  Seth,  who  lived  nine  hundred  and 
twelve  years?  Where  was  Methusalah,  who  lived  nine 
hundred,  sixty  and  nine  years,  even  down  to  the  year  of 
the  deluge?  Where  was  Noah,  who  was  "a  just  man^ 
and  perfect  in  his  generations  V  Where  was  Enoch,  who 
"  walked  with  God,  after  he  begat  Methuselah,  three  hun- 
dred years,  and  begat  sons  and  daughters"  \  And  where 
were  the  "  sons  of  God,"  the  goodly  company  of  the  faith- 
ful, so  conspicuous  at  one  period  of  the  history  under  re- 
view ?  Where  were  they,  that  we  hear  nothing  of  their 
bearing  the  sword,  as  Job  and  Abraham  'afterwards  did. 
in  "  breaking  the  jaws  of  the  wicked,  and  plucking  the 
prey  out  of  their  teeth"  ?  Among  all  these,  were  there 
none  to  be  entrusted  with  such  a  commission  1  Were  none 
of  them  the  Heaven-anointed,  the  wisest  and  best, God-com- 
missioned to  execute  judgment  for  the  wronged,  to  adminis- 
ter penal  law  ;  not  even  while  Cain  stalked  at  large,  builded 
cities,  and  became  sire  of  nations,  the  terror  and  yet  the  cor- 
rupter of  a  hemisphere  1  Were  they  ignorant  of  their  high 
commission ;  or  did  they  shrink  from  the  responsibilities 
devolving  upon  them  1  On  the  other  hand  is  it  not  possi- 
ble that  they  understood  correctly  their  position,  and  were 
content,  if  God  pleased,  to  be  heroes  of  endurance,  rather 
than  heroes  of  protection  or  of  achievement,  so  far  as  phy- 
sical force  vi^as  concerned'? 

Be  this  as  it  may,  the  divine  right  of  kings  in  the 
sphere  of  civil  government,  appears  to  find  no  char- 
ter dating  so  far  back  as  the  antedeluvian  records.  Its 
date  must  be  more  modern.  It  stands  not  in  the  change- 
less nature  of  things,  nor  yet  in  the  essential  and  inherent 
characteristics  and  wants  of  human  nature.  So  at  least 
we  are  led  to  infer  from  the  records.    Whether  others  will 


40  DEMOCRACY  OF  CHRISTIANITY. 

see  in  them  what  the  writer  has  attempted  to  exibit,  or 
draw  the  same  inferences  from  his  data,  he  deemed  them  too 
significant  to  be  ligiitly  passed  over.  That  the  concliisioDS 
above  hinted  at  would  be  sufficiently  established  from 
this  data  alone,  he  would  not  affirm  ;  nor  indeed  that  from 
any  data  hereafter  to  be  reached,  they  can  all  be  maintain- 
ed. Without  seeking  to  forestall  the  inquiry  before  us,  or 
deciding  thus  early  all  the  points  to  be  reached  by  it,  he 
only  asks  that  these  facts  and  suggestions  be  treasured  up 
and  allowed  their  due  weight.  Some  light  on  our  subject 
ought  to  be  derived  from  the  antedeluvian  experiment  and 
records. 


CHAPTER  IV. 

NOAH  AND  THE  NEW  WORLD — THE  TIMES  OF  THE  PATRIARCHS. 

The  entire  human  family,  since  the  deluge,  according  to 
the  Christian  records,  are  as  obviously  and  as  indisputably 
descended  from  Noah  as  from  Adam.  The  care  and  preci- 
sion with  which  the  earliest  of  the  nations  of  antiquity 
(whose  connexion  with  most  o[  the  more  modern  nations 
is  well  known  to  us)  is  connected  in  the  record  with  the 
immediate  descendants  of  Noah,  his  sons,  grandsons,  and 
great  grandsons  whose  namesand  locations  are  recorded,  are 
evidently  designed  and  adapted  to  furnish  us  with  the  start- 
ing point  and  key-note  of  all  authentic  history,  ancient  and 
modern.  This  object  the  Scripture  records  have  accomplish- 
ed, insomuch  that  the  earnest  student  of  history  is  com- 
pelled to  resort  to  them  for  the  clear  light  they,  shed  on 
the  darkness  and  confusion,  the  fable  and  perplexity  which 
otherwise  set  his  investigations  at  defiance,  a  light  which 
at  once  brings  order  out  of  chaos — a  light  no  where  else 
to  be  obtained,  and  compelling  the  assent    of    intelligent 


DEMOCRACV  OF  CHRISTIANITY.  4^ 

and  candid  skeptics  themselves  to  the    authenticity  and 
correctness  of  the  record. 

And  what  have  we  here  but  a  re-publication,  so  to  speak, 
nay  more,  a  re-enactment,  a  new  manifestation  of  the 
grand  fact  of  human  equality  and  common  brotherhood, 
produced  over  again  in  a  new  form,  of  a  more  recent  date, 
and  still  more  demonstrably  connecting  the  first  terms  of 
the  series  wath  those  that  come  after  them,  link  after  link, 
in  the  broad  sun-light  of  universal  history,  and  reaching 
down  even  to  ourselves  1  A  vast  chain,  one  end  ot  which 
is  fastened  to  the  resting  place  of  the  ark  on  Mount  Ara- 
rat, and  whose  ample  coil  enfolds  and  binds  together  all 
nations,  all  tribes,  all  families,  all, individuals  of  the  human 
species,  to  the  end  of  time  ! 

Is  there  no  moral  lesson  in  all  thisl  Nothing  instruc- 
tive, significant,  impressive,  and  pertinent  to  the  great 
inquiry  we  have  proposed  1  What  is  the  lesson  Christi- 
anity is  teaching  us  in  these  venerable  records,  if  it  be  not 
the  great  democratic  principle  of  human  equality  and  com 
mon  brotherhood  ] 

And  is  not  the  importance  and  value  of  the  lesson  indi 
cated  by  the  peculiar  circumstances  under  W'hich  it  was 
taught,  and  the  specific  object  for  w4iich  it  was  more  im- 
mediately designed  ?  A  contemptuous  disregard  of  the 
foundation  principle  of  democracy  had  ruined  a  world,  and 
now  in  ushering  in  a  new  world,  the  very  first  thing  to  be 
done  for  its  enlightenment  and  future  guidance  w-as  to 
bring  the  scene  of  human  brotherhood  and  equality  upon  the 
stage  of  human  life,  to  be  acted  over  again !  What  is  the 
voice  of  God,  according  to  the  Christian  records,  in  all 
this,  if  it  be  not  that  while  man  lives  on  the  earth,  and 
while  the  bow  of  promise  spans  the  arch  of  heaven  over 
his  head,  the  law  of  democratic  equality,  Heaven-imposed 
in  E  len  and  re-iterated  on  Ararat,  is  to  be  a  fundamental 
law  of  his  being,  from  the  control  of  which  he  is  never  to 
escape,  and  from  the  practical  application  of  which,  where- 
ever  it  is  appropriate,  he  is  never  to  diverge  ? 


42  DEMOCRACY  OF  CHRISTIANITY. 

Who  that  has  an  eye  or  a  heart  to  read  the  Scriptures 
— who  that  having  reverently  read  them  as  coming  from 
God,  and  pondered  the  era  of  Noah,  can  look  upon  "  the 
token  of  the  covenant  made  with  every  living  creature^ 
for  perpetual  generations,"  the  ''bow  in  the  clouds"  in  the 
day  of  rain,  without  thinking  of  the  tie  that  binds  him  to 
the  most  degraded  of  his  species — without  repressing  re- 
ligiously the  first  risings  of  aristocratic  pride  1  "  While 
the  earth  remaineth,  while  seed-time  and  harvest,  and 
cold  and  heat,  and  summer  and  wnnter,  and  day  and  nioht 
shall  not  cease,"  God's  holy  law  of  the  common  brother- 
hood and  equality  of  th«  human  family  shall  remain  like- 
wise. When  the  law^s  of  nature  are  repealed,  it  will  be 
in  time  to  inquire  after  a  repeal  of  the  fundamental  prin- 
ciple of  deraocracy,  co-eval  with  hunaanity  and  parallel  to 
its  existence. 

THE  FIRST  CHARTER  OF  CIVIL  GOVERNMENT. 

This  new  and  impressive  repetition  of  the  doctrine  of 
universal  common  brotherhood,  is  immediately  followed 
in  the  inspired  record  with  a  repetition  of  fhe  original 
grant  of  kingly  power  to  the  family  of  man,  over  the  earth 
and  over  the  animal  creation  j  and  this  grant  is  made  to 
stand  as  an  introduction  or  preface  to  a  charter  of  civil 
government — the  first  on  record  among  all  the  nations  of 
the  earth. 

The  fall  of  the  race  from  their  original  integrity,  their 
expulsion  from  paradise^  the  murder  of  Abel,  the  general 
anarchy  and  violence  of  antedeluvian  society,  and  the  con- 
sequent destruction  of  the  entire  race,  with  the  exception 
of  a  single  family,  had  all  intervened  between  the  original 
grant  of  the  soil  and  of  the  animals  to  the  entire  human 
family.  And  the  question  might  naturally  enough  be 
raised,  whether  privileges  and  rights  thus  shamefully  for- 
feited were  to  be  considered  as  still  valid  ;  whether  in  any 
form  they  were  to  be  renewed,  or  whether  some  select 
few  who  were  to  be  regarded  as  the  symbols  of  the  Great 
Father,  the  incarnate  embodiments  of  Strength,  Wisdom, 


DEMOCRACY  OF  CHRISTIANITY.  43 

and  Goodness  were  not  to  be  singled  out  as  the  exclusive 
lords  of  this  lower  world,  to  whom  not  only  the  inferior 
creation  but  the  masses  of  humanity  were  to  do  homage. 
How  reads  the  record  ? 

<'And  God  biessed  Noah  and  his  sons,  and  said  unto 
them  :  Be  fruitful  and  multiply  and  replenish  t/ie  earth. 
And  the  fear  of  you  and  the  dread  of  you  shall  be  upon" 
every  beast  of  the  earth,  and  upon  every  fowl  of  the  air, 
upon  all  that  moveth  upon  the  earth,  and  upon  all  the  fishes 
of  the  seajinto  your  hand  are  they  delivered."-Gen.  ix  1-2. 
Here  it  will  be  perceived  that  the  grant  was  as  unre- 
stricted to  all  the  posterity  of  Noah,  as  it  had  been  to  the 
posterity  of  Adam.  It  was  to  ma?i  that  the  commission 
was  given  ;  it  was  into  their  hand  that  the  world  and  its 
contents  were  delivered.  How  then  could  man  be  the 
property  of  man  ?  How  could  man  claim  dominion  over 
his  fedows,  in  his  own  intrinsic  right!  How  could  there 
be  a  civil  government  in  which  the  masses  of  the  commu- 
nity were  not  to  participate  1  Notice  how  the  Creator  and 
Disposer  of  all,  has  introduced  the  subject  and  in  what 
manner  he  has  adjusted  and  settled  it.  We  continue  our 
quotation  without  omission : 

"  Every  moving  thing  that  liveth  shall  be  meat  for  you: 
even  as  the  green  herb  have  1  given  you  all  things.  But 
flesh  with  the  life  thereof  which  is  the  blood  thereof,  shall 
ye  not  eat.  And  surely  your  blood  of  your  lives  will  I 
require  ;  at  the  hands  of  every  beast  will  1  require  it,  and 
at  the  hand  of  man,  at  the  hand  of  every  man's  brother 
will  I  require  the  life  of  man.  Whoso  sh^ddeth  man's 
blood,  by  man  shall  his  blood  be  shed,  for  in  the  image  of 
God  made  he  man." — lb.  3 — 6. 

The  unbroken  continuity  of  the  address  to  "  Noah  and 
his  sons,"  (i.  e.  his  posterity)  connects  the  grant  of  do- 
minion over  the  be^^sts  and  over  the  soil,  with  the  grant  of 
the  civil  dominion  essential  to  the  protection  of  human 
life.  The  whole  is  committed  not  to  a  single  individual — 
an  autocrat,  not  to  a  select  few — an  aristocracy  ;  but  to 
the  posterity  of  Noah,  to  man,  to  the  brotherhood  of  the 
human  familv. 


44  DEiMOCRACY  OF  CHRISTIANITI'. 

The  closing  clause  of  the  last  sentence  and  the  re- 
enactment  of  the  statute  under  Moses  (Lev.  xxiv.  17.)  pre- 
clude the  interpretation  of  some  who  would  render  it  into 
a  mere  prediction  or  declaration  of  a  general  fact.  The 
argument  against  capital  punishment,  in  our  age  of  the 
Avorld,  if  valid,  must  rest  on  some  other  basis.  That  prob- 
lem comes  not  within  the  scope  of  our  present  inquiry,  yet 
we  may  hint  that  He  who  gave  the  law  to  Noah  and  to 
Moses,  but  did  not  give  it  to  the  antedeluvians,  has  a  right  if 
He  sees  fit,  to  repeal  it.  The  simple  question  is  whether, 
or  when,  or  where  He  has  done  so.  To  the  New  Testa- 
ment records  must  be  referred  the  decision,  as  a  repeal  can 
not  be  claimed  under  the  Old. 

The  record  we  have  quoted  is  a  law,  not  to  Noah  alone, 
but  to  his  posterity  ;  not  to  any  particular  family  or  nation. 
It  was  as  binding  upon  the  posterity  of  Nahor  as  upon 
those  of  Abraham,  upon  the  descendants  of  Ishmael  as 
upon  those  of  Isaac,  upon  the  children  of  Esau  as  upon 
those  of  Jacob.  It  was  a  general  law  until  repealed,  for 
the  entire  family  of  man. 

And  the  execution  of  the  law  as  well  as  the  adjudication 
of  cases  coming  under  it  was  committed  to  man.  This  was 
the  first  authorized  forcible  control  and  condign  punishment 
of  man  by  his  fellow  man.  that  appears  upon  the  Scripture 
records.  And  the  germ  and  charter  of  civil  government 
will  be  found  to  be  wrapped  up  in  the  statute.  A  few 
things  in  this  charter  deserve  notice: 

1.  It  ^vas  to  "Noah  and  his  sons,"  (see  verse  1)  to  his 
posterity  that  the  statute  Avas  given  and  the  charter  gran- 
ted. To  man  as  man — to  the  mass  of  community,  not  to 
any  particular  family  or  hereditary  succession — not  to  the 
strongest,  nor  to  the  oldest,  nor  to  the  wisest,  nor  to  the 
best,  but  to  all  alike  and  in  the  aggregate,  was  the  charge 
given.  On  them,and^not  on  any  select  few,  was  the  char- 
ter conferred — on  them  all  rested  the  responsibility  of  its 
administration — a  comprehensive  veto  upon  all  forms  and 
pleas  of  autocratic  usurpation — God's  own  answer,  if  the 


DEMOCRACY  OF  CHRISTIANITY.  45 

record  be  from  Him,  to  nil  who  during  the  term  covered 
by  the  charter,  shall  set  up  on  any  pretexts  their  exclusive 
claims  to  compulsory  authority  over  their  fellow-men. 
Those  who  set  up  these  claims  must  look  elsewhere  than 
to  this  ninth  chapter  of  Genesis  for  their  charter  of  civil 
government.  More  than  this,  they  must  in  some  way  dis- 
pose of  the  rival  and  counter  charter  it  contains.  With 
this  high  power  vested  in  the  community  at  large,  what 
space  remains  for  their  exclusive  claim  1  How  shall  the 
masses  become  voluntarily  the  liege  subjects  of  such  claim- 
ants without  relinquishing  their  charter,  and  repudiating 
the  high  responsibilities  it  imposes  upon  them  l  Or  how 
shall  the  select  few  press  their  claims  without  rebelling 
aofainst  the  arranf^ements  of  this  divine  charter  1  If  sub- 
ject  to  the  community  in  which  (as  in  the  Christian 
church*)  "ail  are  subject  to  one  another,"  how  can  that 
same  community  submit  to  their  exclusive  claims  of  do- 
minion 1 

2.  The  scope  and  specifications  of  the  charter  may  af- 
ford some  light  concerning-  the  ground,  nature,  necessity, 
proper  object  and  function  of  civil  government.  The  old 
world  had  just  been  swept  away  by  a  flood  because  it  was  '^Z- 
Zct/ztvV/ii'/o/e/2cc," with  outrages  upon  human  rights.  The  ex- 
periment of  having  a  habitable  world  without  the  restraints 
of  penal  law  had  proved  a  failure,  and  that  experiment  was 
not  again  to  be  tried  in  the  then  existing  state  of  society, 
as  it  could  not  be  without  the  moral  certainty  that  its  in- 
tolerable anarchy  would  again  demand  a  deluge.  What 
was  to  be  done?  The  promise,  "1  will  not  again  curse 
the  ground  an^  more  for  man's  sake,"  "  neither  will  I 
again  smite  any  more  every  living  thing  as  1  have  done," 
*'  neither  shall  flesh  be  cut  oft'  any  more  by  the  waters  of 
a  flood,  neither  shall  there  be  any  more  a  flood  to  destroy 
the  earth"  must  needs  be  connected  with  such  an  institu- 
tion of  penal  law  among  men  as  God  foresaw  would  assist 


*  Vide  Eph,  v.  21.  and  i  Peter  v.  5. 

3^ 


46  DEMOCRACY  OF  CHRISTIANITY. 

in  preventing  the  necessarj^  recurrence  of  some  such  des- 
olating visitation. 

Human  crime.,  then,  and  in  the  form  of  violence,  and  outrage 
between  man  and  man.,  was  the  occasion  of  the  charter  and 
of  the  statute.  In  the  absence  of  such  crime  there  could 
have  been  no  occasion  for  either.  The  highest  form  of  vi 
olence  and  outrage  was  singled  out  in  the  specification, 
hyj^i  the  principle  involved  might  be  fairly  construed  to  in- 
clude all  violence,  outrage,  and  high-handed  and  manifest 
injustice  between  man  and  man.  Further  than  this  the 
principle  involved  does  not  seem  to  reach.  If  it  be  the 
proper  province  of  civil  government  to  prescribe  modes  of 
worship,  to  supply  religious  teaching,  to  superintend  edu- 
cation, to  direct  the  industry  and  commercial  intercourse 
of  individuals  (beyond  the  simple  execution  ot  justice)  to 
engage  in  works  appropriate  to  individual  or  combined 
voluntary  enterprise,  to  look  after  the  special  interests  of 
one  class  or  another  of  the  citizens,  to  grant  monopolies 
of  certain  avocations  or  exclusive  privileges  lo  one  class 
in  distinction  from  another,  to  build  up  the  interests  of  one 
state  or  nation  at  the  expense  of  another,  to  extend  the  ju- 
risdiction or  empire  of  any  particular  portion  or  descrip- 
tion of  the  human  family — if  these  and  similar  functions 
belong  properly  to  civil  government,  in  any  age  of  the 
world,  they  do  not  appear  to  have  been  included  in  the 
general  and  original  charter  to  "  Noah  and  his  sons,"  and 
we  must  look  for  the  warranty  of  them  elsewhere.  What- 
ever origin  these  usages  may  claim,  we  may  be  justified 
in  the  conclusion  that  ^'  from  the  beginning  it  was  not 
so." 

3.  We  look  in  vain  likewise  into  this  charter  for  the 
complex  and  expensive  forms  and  arrangements  of  our 
modern  civil  governments,  of  whatever  name — or  for  any 
thing  from  which  the  greater  part  of  them  can  be  fairly 
inferred.  This  results  much  from  the  very  limited  func- 
tions included  in  the  charter.  Whatever  forms  were  ne- 
cessary to  the  proper  execution  of  the   work  described 


DEMOCRACY  OF  CHRISTIA.NITV.  47 

would  be  warranted,  of  course  ;  but  these  ^vould  be  very 
simple  and  plain.  It  may  be  more  than  doubted  that  any 
legislative  power,  properly  so  called,  can  be  deduced  from 
the  grant.  The  legislation  appears  to  have  been  included 
in  the  charter — the  specification  and  the  principle  amount- 
ing to  no  more  than  what  we  now  designate  Common  Law. 
To  administer  this  common  law  in  each  locality,  a  sim- 
ple judiciary  and  executive  power  would  be  needed.  These 
in  their  several  localities,  "  Noah  and  his  sons''^  were  to 
provide.  Extended  jurisdictions,  states,  kingdoms,  and 
empires  with  their  gorgeous  and  costly  paraphanalia 
would  scarcely  be  required.  All  these  may  have  grown 
out  of  them  in  time,  as  doubtless  they  did  ;  but  whether 
in  furtherance  or  hindrance  of  the  original  design  is  to  be 
considered.  Very  evidently  they  could  not  be  essential  to 
the  work. 

The  bearing  of  all  this  upon  the  principles  and  upon  the 
usages  of  a  simple  democracy — the  most  simple  that  can  be 
imagined — need  hardly  be  insisted  upon.  The  original 
charter  of  civil  government  is  the  most  extremely  and  exclu- 
sively democratic  and  simple  that  the  world  has  yet  seen. 
And  this  was  all,  according  to  the  Christian  records,  that 
the  Creator  of  men  would  institute,  even  after  the  pregnant 
experiment  of  the  antedeluvians  and  the  terrible  catastro- 
phe of  the  deluge.  He  who  knew  what  was  in  man,  and 
in  what  manner  human  madness  was  best  managed  and 
counteracted,  does  not  appear  to  have  inferred  from  the 
premises,  such  conclusions  in  favor  a  "  strong  govern- 
ment," so  called,  and  the  subjugation  of  the  masses  to  the 
select  few  as  our  modern  alarmists  have  been  wont  to  do, 
in  contemplation  of  scenes  of  anarchy  and  violence.  The 
horrors  of  servile  insurrections,  the  terrors  of  the  First 
French  Revolution — how  often  have  these  been  appealed 
to  as  unanswerable  arguments  in  favor  of  despotic  power, 
and  against  human  freedom  !  But  what  were  these  to  the 
horrors  of  antedeluvian  violence  and  the  catastrophe  of 
the  general  deluge,  from  which  the  Creator  inferred  nof 


48  ijemocracy  of  Christianity. 

the  necessity  of  autocratic  authoritj',  but  the  propriety  of 
democratic  jurisdiction. 

4.  The  principle  of  civil  government — its  authority  and 
warrant — are  here  seen  to  lie,  if  we  mistake  not,  in  the 
direct  charter  of  the  Creator,  not  in  the  supposed  right  of 
self-defense,  not  in  any  imaginary  social  compact,  in  which 
a  portion  of  our  original  rights  (personal  self-defense 
among  the  rest)  were  given  up  to  secure  the  greater  safe- 
ty of  the  rights  reserved.  Instead  of  this  anti-democra- 
tic fiction,  we  have,  in  the  Christian  records,  the  matter-of- 
fact  divine  charter  g^  c\y\\   government,   not   the   fabulous 

and  absurdly  imagined  social  compact,  which  nobody  ever 
made,  and  of  which  history  has  preserved  no  record  !  In 
this  divine  charter,  none  of  our  rights  are  compromised, 
but  all  of  them  are  guarantied,  and  the  only  authority  of 
the  government — in  other  words  of  the  community — con- 
sists in  the  obligation  imposed  by  the  charter,  to  see  that 
each  msm's  original  rights  are  preserved  inviolate  and  un- 
impaired. 

5.  And  this  view  bases  the  civil  and  political  rights  and 
duties  both  of  society  and  of  the  individual,  not  upon  mere 
estimates  of  expediency,  upon  calculations  of  advantage, 
upon  exegencies  of  supposed  necessity,  (the  tyrant's  plea) 
but  upon  the  broad  and  changeless  foundation  of  im- 
mutable and  eternal  right^  coeval  with  human  existence, 
and  firm  as  the  divine  throne. 

It  enthrones  conscience  as  the  divinely  authorized  ex- 
ponent of  law,  and  requires  allegiance  only  to  the  True 
and  the  Right.  Thus  it  clothes  a  righteous  civil  govern- 
with  the  authority  of  God,  but  absolves  the  individual  and 
the  minority  when  either  the  community  or  the  autocrat 
undertake  to  "frame  mischief  by  a  law."  Can  there  be 
anything  more  truly  Christian  or  more  radically  democra- 
tic than  this  1 

6.  This  divine  charter  bears  date  prior  to  all  other  po- 
litical and  civil  institutions  j  it  is  the  oldest  as  wed  as  the 
highest  precedent  of  civil  anthority — a  charter  repealable 


DEMOCRACY   OF  CHRISTIANITY.  49 

only  by  the  Power  that  enacted  it.     To  what  extent  "  No- 
ah and  his  sons  "  availed  themselves  of   this    charter    or 
fulfilled  the  obligations  connected  with  it,  in   those   early 
ao-es,  are  other  questions  concerning  which  our    informa- 
tion is  but  scanty.     The  institution  may  have  become  per- 
verted or  lost  in  as  short  a  time  as  were  the   institutions 
of  the  Ne\kTestament,  but  that  circumstance  impeaches 
not  the  inspire  record  or  authority  of   the  institution  in 
the  one  zase  more  than  in  the  other.      Nimrod   (grandson 
of  Ham,  the  Jupiter  Ammon  or  chief  god  of  antiquity)  was 
a  military  hero  and  "  the  first  king  we  read  of  in  authen- 
tic history."     "  Casting  off  the  fear  of  God  and  acting  in 
defiance  of  the  divine  prohibition  of  shedding  blood,    he 
rendered  himself  notorious,  and  his  name  became  a  prov- 
erb."  "And  the  beginning  of  his  kingdom  was  Babel,  and 
Erech,  and  Accad,  and  Calneh,  in  the  land  of  Shinar."  This 
was  the  origin  of  Babylon,  the  seat  of  theancient  idolatry,  in- 
somuch that  the  name  became  synonymous  with  false  w^or- 
ship,  and  was  symbolical,  even  down  to  the   date   of  the 
Apocalypse,  of  everything  despotic  and  anti-christian— at 
war  with  Jehovah  and  His  Messiah.    Had  Nimrod  and  his 
associates  and  successors  revered  the  true  God,  and  hon- 
ored his  charter  of  civil  government  to  Noah  and  his  sons, 
Babylon  would  have  been  a    democracy— a    city    of  true 
worshippers,  "  a  name  and  a  praise  in  the  whole  earth." 

PATRIARCHAL  SIMPLICITY. 

The  principle  of  democracy  has  its  manifestations  and 
developments  in  the  walks  of  social  and  private  life, 
quite  as  significantly  as  in  the  sphere  of  politics  and 
in  the  forms^of  civil  or  ecclesiastical  polity.  So  long  as 
the  most  elevated  and  honorable  in  society  provide  for 
their  daily  wants  by  the  labor  of  their  own  hands,  per- 
formmjT  m  their  own  families  the  homely  offices  that  in 
more  polished  circles  are  accounted  menial  or  vulgar,  and 
so  long  as  a  corresponding  simplicity  prevails  in  modes  of 
living'and  habits  of  social  intercourse,  we  may  be  certain 
that  the  democratic  principle  is    still    in    the    ascendant 


5^  DEMOCRACY  OF  CHRISTIANITr. 

whatever  titles  or  forms  may  be  in  voorue,  especially  if 
these  features  of  society  are  found  in  connexion  with  gen- 
eral intelligence,  sobriet^r,  industry,  competency,  hospital- 
ity, and  a  good  degree  of  progress  m  the  arts  and  manners 
of  civilization. 

The  recordsof  Abraham,  and  Isaac,  and  Jacob,  with  their 
families  and  cotemporaries,  are  rich  in  illustrations  of  our 
meaning.     These  scripture  worthies  appear  to  have  been 
among  the  principal  men  of  their  times.    Abraham  was  re- 
garded among  his  neighbors  as  «  a  mighty  prince,"  and  on 
one  occasion  he  went  forth  with  '' trained  servants  born  in 
his  own  house,  three  hundred  and  eighteen"  to  the  rescue  of 
his  captive  kinsman.  But  when  the  narrative  tells  us  that, 
on  the  arrival  of  guests  who  came  to  his  tent  on  foot,  Abra^ 
ham  "  ran  to  the  herd  and  fetched  a  calf  tender  and  good, 
and  gave  it  to  a  young  man,  and  he  hasted  to   dress   it,'' 
and  ''he  hastened   into   the   tent   unto  Sarah,  and   said. 
Make  ready  quickly  three  measures  of  fine  meal,  knead  it', 
and  bake  cakes  on  the  hearth"— we  cannot  help  feeling  that 
this  "  mighty  prince"  was  less  aristocratic   than  many  of 
our  democratic  judges  of  county  courts,  or    untitled    citi- 
zens of  opulence  and  fashion.      We  are  not  prepared  nor 
concerned  to  bestow  unqualified  commendation  on  all  the 
arrangements  and  usages  of  patriarchal  life  as  being  either 
democratic  or  Christian.     In  the  servitude  of  those  times, 
connected  as  it  was  with  polygamy,  there  may  have  been 
features  not  to  be  admired  or  copied  ;  and  yet  the  pretense 
is  wholly  an  unwarrantable  one,  that  any   thing    akin    to 
our  modern  chattel  enslavement  was  practiced  by  the  pa- 
triarchs just  named.     The  servitude  of  their   dependants 
was  not  even  in  any  sense  an  involuntary   one.     This  is 
evident  from    a   number  ot    considerations  and  incidents 
of  the  narrative.     There  was  no   -prince,"    monarch,   or 
organized  government  of  any  kind  superior  to  those  patri- 
archs,  to  whom  they  owed  allegiance,  or  on  whose  power 
they  could  depend  to  enforce  the  servitude  in  question  or 
prevent  the  flight  of  fugitives.     And  how  could  one   man 


DEMOCRACY     OF    CHRISTIANITV.  51 

hold  in  durance  four  hundred  armed  men  1  Are  our  mod- 
ern slav^eholders  willing  to  arm  their  slaves  and  commit 
their  own  defense  to  them  1  'One  of  Abraham's  servants, 
Eliazer  of  Damascus,  was  his  presumptive  heir  while  he 
remained  childless.  The  same  or  another  servant  was 
sent  by  him  into  a  foreign  country  to  obtain  a  wife  for  his 
son  Isaac,  which  delicate  mission  he  successfully  perform- 
ed and  returned.  Jacob,  the  heir  of  Isaac  and  Abraham, 
came  not  into  possession  of  their  servants,  but  became  a 
servant  himself  to  his  kinsman  Laban,  and  then  and  after- 
wards had  other  servants  in  his  own  employ. 

A  sort  of  modified  and  unduly  extended  family  govern- 
ment under  the  patriarchs,  appears  to  have  besn  the  pre- 
vailing civil  government  of  their  times.  Something  of  this 
kind  may  have  been  the  magistracy  of  Job,  perhaps  with  the 
additional  assent  of  his  neighbors,  and  in  accordance  with 
the  charter  to  "  Noah  and  his  sons."  He  seems  to  have 
entered  into  the  true  spirit  of  his  office.  "  I  delivered," 
says  he,  "  the  poor  that  cried,  the  fatherless,  and  him  that 
had  none  to  help  him.  The  blessing  of  many  ready  to 
perish  came  upon  me,  and  I  caused  the  widow's  heart  to 
sing  for  J03'.  I  put  on  righteousness  and  it  clothed  me,  my 
judgment  was  a  robe  and  a  diadem.  I  was  eyes  to  the 
blind  and  {c(it  was  I  to  the  lame.  I  was  a  father  to  the 
poor,  and  the  cause  1  knew  not,  I  searched  out.  And  i 
brake  the  jaws  of  the  wicked,  and  plucked  the  spoil  out 
of  his  teeth. — Job  xxix.  12 — 17. 

The  patriarchal  form,  by  bringing  large  numbers  under 
the  control  of  an  individual,  and  especially  when  that  con- 
trol was  extended  to  hired  laborers,  shepherds  and  domes- 
tic servants,  on  an  extended  scale,  might  gradually  dis- 
place or  throw  into  the  shade  th©  more  democratic  char- 
ter to  Noah  and  his  sons;  and  monarchical  institutions 
might  grow  out  of  these  usages,  after  a  time.  The  rela- 
tion of  capitalists  and  operatives  in  our  own  day  has  a  simi- 
lar tendency,  as  we  know.  Thus  divine  institutions  are 
gradually  changed  and  superseded  by  the  usages  of  men. 


52  DEMOCRACY  OF  CHRISTIAN  IT  V. 

THE  CITIES  OF  THE  PLAIN. 

While  virtuous  principles  and  democratic  habits  were 
in  a  state  of  comparative  preservation  amid  the  scenes  of 
pastoral  life,  the  rich  and  populous  cities  were  becoming 
corrupted,  effeminate,  and  dissolute. 

Lot,  the  friend  and  kinsman  of  Abraham,  had  separated 
from  him  to  avoid  occasions  of  strife  between  their 
herdsman.  There  being  no  exclusive  monopoly  of  the 
soil  at  that  time,  in  that  region,  the  matter  was  amicably 
settled  between  them  : 

*'  And  Abram  said  unto  Lot,  Let  there  be  no  strife  I  pray 
thee  between  me  and  thee,  and  between  my  herdsman  and 
thy  herdsmen,  for  ive  be  brethren.  Is  not  the  whole  land 
before  thee  ?  Separate  thyself,  I  pray  thee,  from  me.  If 
thou  wilt  take  the  left  hand  then  will  I  go  to  the  right,  or 
if  thou  depart  to  the  right^  hand  then  will  I  po  to  the 
left." 

Lot  chose  the  valley  of  Jordan,  and  "  pitched  his  tent 
toward  Sodom.  But  the  men  of  Sodom  were  wicked  and 
sinners  before  the  Lord  exceedingly." — Geji.  xiii. 

Of  the  particular  character  and  specific  manifestations 
of  their  wickedness  we  are  else  vhere  informed  : 

"Behold  this  was  the  iniquity  of  thy  sister  Sodom, 
pride,  fulness  of  bread,  and  abundance  of  idleness  was  in 
her,  and  in  her  daughters,  neither  did  sht?  strengthen  the 
hands  of  the  poor  and  needy.  And  they  were  haughty, 
and  committed  abominations  before  me  :  therefore  I  took 
them  away  as  I  saw  good." — Ezek.  xvi.  49,  50. 

In  more  modern  phraseology  the  passage  inaj^  be  para- 
phrased thus  : 

The  crowning  sin  of  Sodom  was  the  aristocracy  of  over- 
grown and  exorbitant  wealth.  Relying  on  their  indepen- 
dent fortunes,  her  citizens  lived  luxuriously,  educated 
their  families  delicately,  without  inuring  them  to  habitual 
labor,  while  they  neglected  to  extend  relief  to  the  poor. 
They  were  aristocratic  in  their  tastes,  deportment,  and 
manners,  looking  down  upon  those  who  could  not  vie  with 
them  in  their  idleness  and  splendor,  as  inferiors.  They 
became  self-indulgent,  pleasure-loving,   and    dissolute  in 


DEMOCRACY  OF  OIIKISTIAMTV.  53' 

tiieir  morals.  For  these  causes  God  saw  fit  to  destroy 
tliem. 

Proverbial  as  were  the  Sodomites  for  their  gross  impu- 
rities, it  is  quite  remarkable  that  in  the  propliet's  account 
of  the  causes  of  their  overthrow,  this  circumstance  is  but 
once  lightly  hinted  at,while  the  more  generic  sin  ofbeing  ar- 
istocratic is  thrice  repeated  in  varying  and  significant  forms 
of  speech.  The  description  answers  to  that  which  histo- 
rians have  often  employed  in  describing  the  luxury,  corrup- 
tion of  manners,  and  decline  of  the  spirit  of  liberty  and 
equality  in  some  republic,  on  the  eve  o(  the  subversion  of 
its  free  institutions,  and  the  establishment  of  despotic 
power  upon  their  ruins;  and  the  description  would  answer 
for  most  of  the  populous  and  wealthy  cities  of  our  own 
times,  as  Ezekiel  reminded  the  citizens  of  Jerusalem  in 
his  day,  that  it  was  appropriate  to  them. 

The  account  in  Genesis  gives  ns  indeed  a  frightful  im- 
pression of  the  anarchy,  violence,  debauchery,  and  law- 
lessness prevailing  in  Sodom  on  the  evening  preceeding 
its  destruction,  when  Lot  was  charged  with  an  impertinent 
intermeddling  and  an  unauthorized  interference,  because 
he  gently  remonstrated  with  them  as  brethren.  But  if  the 
journals  of  some  of  our  more  modern  cities  do  not  belie 
them,  the  recurrence  of  similar  riots  for  similar  causes 
has  not  been  uncommon. 

"  Then  the  Lord  reigned  upon  Sodom  and  upon  Gomor- 
rah brimstone  and  fire  from  the  Lord  out  of  heaven,  and 
Hcoverthrew  those  cities,  and  all  the  plain,  and  all  the  in- 
habitants of  the  cities,  and  that  which  grew  upon  the 
ground."  *  *  #  *  *  * 

"And  Abraham  got  up  early  in  the  morning  to  the  place 
where  he  stood  before  the  Lord.  And  lie  looked  toward 
Sodom  and  Gomorrah,  and  toward  all  the  land  of  the  plain, 
and  beheld,  and  lo!  the  smoke  of  the  country  went  up  as 
the  smoke  of  a  furnace." 

Such,  according  to  the  Scripture  records,  was  an  appro- 
priate expression  of  God's  abhorrence  of  the  spirit  of  aris- 
tocracy and  of  the  arrogance,  self-indulgence,  sensuality, 


54  DE.MUCKAOV    OF  OllRlSTlANlir. 

vice,  violence,  and  oppression  connected  with  and  engen- 
dered by  it,  in  the  days  of  Lot  and  of  Abraham.  How  then, 
according  the  Christian  religion,  does  the  same  God  who 
changes  not,  regard  similar  manifestations  of  character 
now!  With  how  much  complacency  can  He  look  upon 
the  modern  monuments  of  aristocratic  distinction,  splendor, 
luxury,  effeminacy,  and  pride;  upon  mansions  whose  idle 
occupants  devour  the  hard  earnings  of  the  poor,  and  frame 
the  fraudulent  and  oppressive  arrangements  which  deprive 
them  of  bread.  The  language  of  Cowper,  in  his  apostro- 
phe to  London,  may  be  appropriate  elsewhere  : 

"  Ten  ritjIUuDus  would  have  saved  a  city,  once. 
And  tliou   ha-t  many  lifliteous;   well  for  tliep, 
Thit  salt  pre-serves  li.ee,  more  corrupted,  e.Ue, 
An  1  llu^rerore  more  obnoxinis,  at  this  hour, 
Than  So  Jo  n  in  her  day  h  id  power  to  he, 
For  who  n  God  heard  Ins  Alir'aaai  plead  in  vain." 

Abraham  retained  and  cherished  the  spirit  of  equal 
common  brotherhood.  Abraham  was  the  friend  of  God. 
Lot  was  a  righteous  man.  He  regarded  human  rights, 
and  expostulated  with  the  sons  of  violence  and  pride, 
"God  turned  the  cities  of  iSodom  and  Gomorrah  into  ash- 
es, and  condemned  them  with  an  overthrow,  making  them 
an  ensnmple  unto  those  that  after  should  live  ungodly;  and  de- 
livered just  Lot,  vexed  with  the  filthy  conversation  of  the 
wicked." — 2  Peter  ii.  6,  7. 

Does  Christianity  teach  us  notliing  concerning  aristoc- 
racy and  democracy,  when  the  records  present  contrasts 
like  these  \  Is  there  nothing  of  warning  here  to  the  pam- 
pered favorites  and  apologists  of  the  one,  or  of  encourage- 
ment to  the  hated  and  self-denying  advocates  of  the  other, 
in  times  when  fulness  of  bread,  idleness,  and  haughty  vio- 
lence are  preying  upon  the  vitals  of  the  poor,  and  rioting 
in  self-indulgence  and  pleasure! 


DEMOOHAUY  OF  CHRISTIANITY.  56 

CHAPTER  V. 

EGYPT  AND  THE  HEBREWS. 

The  Bible  account  of  the  oppression  of  the  Hebrews  in 
Egypt  and  of  their  wonderful  deliverance  by  the^  hand  of 
Moses,  is  full  of  instruction  on  the  subject  of  our  present 
inquiry.  In  connexion  with  what  we  learn  of  the  ancient 
Egyptians  from  other  sources  of  information,  the  story 
becomes  significant  in  more  aspects  than  one,  and  is  every 
way  interesting  and  important. 

Egypt  appears  to  have  been  the  earliest  of  the  ancient 
nations  that  rose  to  a  high  state  of  mental  culture 
and  improvement  in  the  arts  and  sciences.  Not  less 
remarkable  was  she  for  her  wealth  and  power.  The 
world  was  filled  with  her  renown.  She  was  the  cra- 
dle of  learning — the  teacher  as  well  as  the  granery 
of  antiquity.  "Moses  was  learned  in  all  the  wisdom 
of  the  Egyptians,"  and  this  circumstance  appears  to  have 
been  the  inlet  of  literature  among  the  Hebrews.  We  hear 
nothino^  of  their  havinof  a  knowledcre  of  letters  till  then. 
Phoenecia,  Rome,  and  Greece,  in  turn,  received  the  ele- 
ments of  learning  from  Egypt,  and  even  down  to  the  Au- 
gustan period,  when  literature  and  science  were  at  their 
meridian,  the  more  opulent  Greek  and  Roman  citizens  sent 
their  sons  to  Egypt  for  education,  just  as  some  of  the 
same  class  in  America  resort  to  the  universities  of  Europe, 
now.     Euclid,  the  father  of  geometry,    was  an  Egyptian. 

And  yet  the  Egyptians  of  antiquity  were  negroes.  He- 
roditus,  the  father  of  profane  history,  who  had  resided  in 
Egypt  and  travelled  in  Ethiopia — from  whence  the  Egyp- 
tians, as  he  tells  us  had  their  origin — declares  that  they 
were  in  his  day  one  people  ;  and  he  describes  them 
as  being  of  a  glossy  jet  black  complexion,  with  com- 
pressed nostrils,  and  frizzled  hair.  The  celebrated 
statues   of    tho    Sphynx>   one    of   the   "  seven    wonder? 


56  UEMOORACY  OF  GHRISTIANITY. 

the  world,"  exhibit  the  same  features  to  tlie  present 
da}^,  and  thus  prove  the  truth  of  the  statement. 

These  facts  are  of  primary  significance  in  disposing 
of  questions  of  races  and  castes,  and  of  the  alledg- 
ed  superiority  of  some  races  over  others.  At  no  pe- 
riod have  the  boasted  Anglo  Saxons,  as  we  term  them,  held 
so  high  a  position  comparatively  speaking,  among  the  races 
that  surrounded  them,  as  did  the  race  whom  we  now  de- 
nominate negroes  and  whom  we  treat  as  inferior — forget- 
ful that  all  the  literature  and  science  in  the  world,  except 
perhaps  what  may  be  claimed  by  the  Hindoos  and  Chinese, 
may  be  traced  directly  or  indirectly  to  them.*  What  a 
lesson  to  the  aristocracy  of  descent  and  of  race  !  What  a 
rebuke  to  national  pride  ! 

Connecting  these  facts  with  the  Scripture  records,  we 
might  ask,  in  the  first  place,  what  had  become  of  the 
alledgcd  curse  of  the  negro  race,  the  supposed  descendants 
of  Ham,  to  the  end  of  time,  as  decyphered  from  the  enig- 
matic language  of  Noah — a  sentence  sometimes  const  rued, 
not  merely  as  prophetic  (which  could  confer  no  right)  but 
as  a  divine  sanction  to  all  the  v/rongs  inflicted  on  the  Af- 
ricans and  their  descendants,  on  all  parts  of  the  world  ever 
smce.  However  construed,  the  record  pre.ients  to  us  this 
same  negro  race  as  standing  in  the  times  of  xMoses  on  that 
place  of  pre-eminence  in  the  human  family,  where  Herod- 
itus  and  later  historians  assure  us  they  were  seen  stand- 
ing for  many  centuries  afterwards.  Whether,  as  some 
think,  the  prediction  (for  nothing  more  can  be  made  of  it) 
was  accomplished  in  the  subjugation  of  the  Canaanitesby 
Joshua,  the  great  fact  of  negro  ascendency  for  ages,  and 
as  far  back  as  the  bondage  of  the  Hebrews  in  Egypt,  nay, 
rather,  at  that  still  earlier  period  when  the  sons  of  Jacob 
went  down  into  Egj^pt  to  buy  corn,  is  a  fact  as  well  estab- 
lished as  any  thing  can  be,  by  the  concurrent  testimonies 
of  sacred  and  profane  history.     Thus  is  swept   away  the 

*  See  an  inlcreslinji  speech  be  fore  the  Culonization^Society,  hv  Alexan- 
der H.  Everett,  Ibrmerly  Editor  of  the  North  American  Review. 


DKMOLIHACY   OF  CHRISTIANITY.  57 

pretGiided  sanction  of  oppression  by  the  perpetual  curse  of 
the  children  of  Ham  !* 

If  the  subsequent  degradation  of  the  same  race,  once  so 
enlightened  and  powerful,  be  thought  an  enigma  too  hard 
for  solution  or  even  credence,  or  calling  for  a  revived  edi- 
tion of  Noah's  curse  to  shed  light  upon  it,  let  reference 
be  had  to  that  remarkable  prophecy  of  Ezekiel,  (Chapter 
29)  more  intelligible  and  definite  than  that  of  Noah,  which 
personifies  Egypt  as  "a  great  dragon  [or  crocodile]  that 
lieth  in  the  midst  of  his  rivers,,  which  hath  said.  My  river 
is  my  own  and  1  have  made  it  for  myself" — boasting  in 
aristocratic  arrogancy  and  pride,  breaking  in  pieces  the 
surrounding  nations,  and  treacheroursly  piercing  like  a 
spear  the  confiding  hand  that  by  treaties  of  alliance  has 
leaned  upon  it  as  a  staff.     Then  comes  the  prediction  : 

"  It  shall  become  the  basest  of  the  kingdoms,  neither 
shall  it  exalt  itself  any  more  above  the  nations;  for  1  will 
diminish  them,  and  they  shall  no  more  rule  over  the 
nations." 

At  the  promulgation  of  this  prophecy  its  fulfilment  was 
as  improbable,  to  human  view,  as  a  similar  prediction 
would  now  be  concerning  France,  England,  or  the  United 
States  of  America.  But  Egypt  for  ages,  to  say  nothing 
of  the  other  branches  of  the  Ethiopian  family,  has  presen- 
ted us  the  fac  simile  of  Ezekiel's  Daguerreotype — another 
lesson  to  be  remembered  by  the  sons  of  pride,  especially 
by  those  who  quote  the  curse  of  Ham  as  an  apology  for 
their  oppressions.  Let  them  beware  lest  the  retributions 
of  Ham  become  their  own,  and  be  entailed  upon  their  pos- 
terity. Oppressors,  aristocrats,  and  their  apologists  the 
world  over  should  tremble,  and  not  insanely  bless  them- 
selves when  they  think  of  the  curse  that  fell  upon  the  Af- 
ricans! He  who  could  degrade  the  first  born,  the  most 
exalted,  the  most  noble,  the  most  proud  of  the  ancient  civ- 


*  Anotiicr  remarkable  circumstance  is,  that^riam,  tlje  fourvior  nf  E'jvpt 
and  Lybia  and  lather  of  tlic  iu'irr'>  race,  was  the  Ju niter  Auim.m  ot  an- 
tiquity, worshipped  as  a  woJ,  not  onlv  by  his  posterity,  but  by  the  Greeks 
and  Romans, 


58  DEMOCRACY  OF  CHRIftTIAMTY. 

ilized  nations,  can  degrade  thtm.  If  not  even  *'  the  god- 
like Ethiopians,"  as  the  ancients  of  our  own  hue  were 
wont  to  call  the  sable  race  (almost  loading  them  with  di- 
vine honors)  could  withstand  the  withering  blast  of  their 
Maker's  indignation  for  their  pride,  what  are  "  the  paler 
nations  of  the  north"  that  they  should  withstand  Him  \ 

One  link  in  the  heavy  chain  of  crime  that  ultimatel}'"  de- 
graded Egypt,  was  the  treatment  of  the  Hebrews  that  had 
settled  within  her  borders.  The  Christian  records  give 
prominence  to  this  history,  and  forages  afterwards  it  was 
the  burden  of  sacred  song,  the  theme  of  poets  and  states- 
men, of  philosophers  and  sages.  Even  the  New  Testa- 
ment writers  recur  to  it  for  lessons  of  instruction — the 
beloved  disciple  on  Patmos,  in  his  revelations  of  the  future, 
interweaving  the  triumphal  "  song  of  Moses,  the  servant 
of  God  "  at  the  Red  Sea  with  the  sons  of  the  redeemed  of 
the  Lamb  to  the  end  of  time.  There  must  be  deep  signi- 
ficance in  an  event  like  this.  Let  us  look  after  its  mean- 
ing. 

The  government  of  Egypt  had  become  monarchical  and 
even  despotic.  The  simple  execution  of  justice  between 
a  man  and  his  neighbor  was  no  longer  the  grand  object  of 
its  arrangements.  Other  views  of  the  proper  functions 
of  civil  government  had  displaced  the  simple  elements  of 
the  divine  charter  to  "  Noah  and  his  sons.''  Not  individ- 
ual rights,  but  the  glory  of  the  state,  the  splendor  of  the 
grand  monarch,  were  the  political  ideas  now  in  the  ascend- 
ant. The  responsibility  of  government  was  no  longer  un- 
derstood to  rest  upon  the  shoulders  of  the  people.  The 
royal  throne  had  usurped  their  place,  and  they  had  no- 
thing to  do  but  to  recognize  the  divine  right  of  kings,  as 
their  priests  had  doubtless  taught  them,  and  bow  down 
reverently  before  them.  And  had  they  not  felt  as  well  as 
witnessed  kingly  power  \  The  land  had  become  the  mon- 
arch's, they  tilled  it  as  his  tenants  at  will,  or  as  serfs. 
This  arrangement,  apparently  originating  in  an  act  of 
mercy  to  their  forefathers,  and   entered  into  at    the'r  ear- 


DEMOORAOV  OF  O'HRISTI^NITY.  59 

nest  request,*  was  now  the  constitutional  law  of  the  em- 
pire. No  land  monopoly  perhaps  was  ever  commenced 
with  belter  intentions,  or  could  boast  a  more  respectable 
origin.  But,  whatever  of  philanthropy,  of  political  saga- 
city, or  knowledge  of  political  economy,  may  have  been 
manifested  in  its  original  enactment,  the  final  result  was 
the  same.  The  king  was  supreme,  and  reigned,  as  was 
supposed,  in  his  own  kingly  right.  The  people  were  his 
landless  vassals,  the  priests  only  excepted,  and  even  these 
were  subsidized  by  the  kingly  bounty. 

In  a  state  thus  constituted,  and  whose  original  inhabi- 
tants had  come  into  this  position,  it  was  not  to  be  suppo- 
sed that  a  colony  of  foreigners,  of  different  customs,  reli- 
gion, habits  and  manners,  would  obtain  favors  that  should 
elevate  them  above  the  other  citizens.  The  reverse  wou  Id 
almost  necessarily  be  the  re  suit.  Their  avocation  of  rear- 
ing and  tending  cattle,  was  considered  by  the  Egyptians 
degrading  or  servile.  (Gen.  xlvi.  34.)  Imperceptibly, 
but  almost  inevitably,  they  fell  into  the  condition  of  an  in- 
ferior caste.  No  participancy  in  the  government,  by  the 
election  of  their  rulers,  protected  them.  Nor  could  they 
appeal  to  their  Egyptian  neighbors  to  shield  them  in  the 
exercise  of  the  right  of  suffrage,  which  they  did  not  wield 
even  for  themselves. 

Thus  defenceless,  and  surrounded  by  no  masses  of  men 
who  felt  that  they  had  any  means  of  protecting  them,  or 
that  they  were  under  any  obligations  to  do  so,  the  He- 
brews, were  of  course,  completely  in  the  hands  of  the  Pha- 
raohs who  ruled  over  them.  Nor  is  it  likely  that  they  had, 
in  any  waj^  any  strong  hold  upon  the  sympathies  or  the 
pecuniary  interests  of  the  Egyptians,  tliougk  they  were  not 
their  slaves.     The  bondage  ot  the  Hebrews  in  Egypt  was 

*  See  Gen.  xlvii.  The  narrative  leads  us  \o  suppose  thai  Joseph  made 
these  arranjroments,  not  by  any  divine  direction,  but  in  the  exercise  of 
hisownjuogment.  And  the  rase  is  not  the  onlv  one  in  which  human 
saaacily  com  rolled  by  the  best  uiientions  of  irnpertect  rnnn,  has  originated 
poliucal  regulations  subversive  ot  human  Ireedoii),  i,i  the  lon-r  run  and 
showing  the  wisJom  of  confining  civil  government   to  its  oriirjnal  charter. 


:60  DEMOORAGY  OF  CHRISTIANITV. 

not  personal  servitude  to  individuals  in  any  form.  Still 
less  were  they  held  as  chattels.  They  were  not  bought 
or  sold,  by  individual  Egyptians  ;  nor  does  it  appear  that 
Pharaoh  claimed  any  such  proprietorship  in  them.  We 
hear  nothing  of  their  having  been  cut  off  by  law  from  ac- 
cess to  literature,  or  of  their  having  been  restrained  from 
the  free  exercise  of  their  religion,  until  Moses  requested 
that  they  might  go  into  the  wilderness  to  offer  sacrifices. 
The  rights  of  marriage  and  of  the  family  relation  do  not 
appear  to  have  been  outraged,  except  in  the  murderous 
edict  for  the  destruction  of  their  male  children,  and  this 
appears  to  have  been  executed,  if  at  all,  to  only  a  very 
limited  extent,  and  for  a  short  period.*  They  held  prop- 
erty. They  had  numerous  flocks  and  herds.  They  could 
buy  and  sell.  They  held  the  occupancy  of  land  bj^  the 
same  tenure  probably  with  the  Egyptians.  As  they  were 
not  in  the  condition  of  modern  slaves,  so  neither  were  they 
famishing  like  the  oppiessed  people  of  Ireland.  In  the 
wilderness,  after  their  emancipation,  they  longed  for  the 
leeks  and  onions  and  flesh-pots  of  Egypt,  and,  unlike  Irish 
emio-rants  or  fugitive  slaves,  desired  to  return  back  again. 
The  climax  of  oppression,  as  frequently  witnessed  in  more 
modern  times,  was  never  endured  by  the  Hebrews  in 
Egypt.     The  sum  of  the  record  is  this  : — 

The  king  and  people  of  Egypt  grew  jealous  of  the  in- 
creasing wealth  and  numbers  of  the  Hebrew  colonists,  for 
"the  land  was  filled  with  them,"  and  in  the  event  of  a 
war  it  was  feared  that  they  might  join  vv'ith  the  enemy, 
and  throw  off  the  yoke. 

'^  Therefore  they  did  set  over  them  task  masters,  to  af- 
flict them  with  their  burdens.  And  they  built  for  Pha- 
raoh treasure  cities,  Pithom  and  Ramases.  But  the  more 
they  afflicted  them  the  more  they  multiplied  and  grew. 
And  they  were  grieved  because  of  the  children  of  Israel. 
And  the  Egyptians  made  the  children  of  Israel  to  serve 
with  rigor.     And  they   made  their  lives  bitter  with  hard 


*  t^xod'js  i. 


DEMOCRACY  OF  CHRTI'TIA  MTY.*  6] 

Dondage,  in  mortar,  and  ia  brick,  and  in  all  manner  of 
service  in  the  field  ;  all  their  service,  wherein  they  made 
them  serve,  was  with  rigor." — Ex.  i.  11-14. 

It  has  been  conjectured  that  they  vrcre  also  employed 
in  building  some  of  the  celebrated  pyramids.  Be  this  as 
it  may,  the  record  just  quoted  establishes  the  fact  that 
they  were  employed  on  great  and  magnificent  public  works, 
for  the  use  and  under  the  direction  of  the  government  ;  that 
th»  work  of  internal  improvements  was  then  considered 
as  falling  legitimately  within  the  sphere  of  governmental 
provision  and  superintendency,  that  the  king  and  his  sub- 
jects were  earnestly  intent  on  the  vigorous  prosecution  of 
these  great  national  enterprises,  that  national  aggrandize- 
ment and  at  the  expense  of  a  supposed  inferior  or  subor- 
dinate race,  not  distinctively  Egyptian,  were  leading  po- 
litical ideas  then  in  the  ascendant  ;  that  for  these  consid- 
erations the  continued  residence  of  the  Hebrews  in  Egypt 
and  Egyptian  control  over  them,  were  esteemed  objects 
of  commanding  importance,  and  that  the  oppression  of  the 
Hebrews,  like  many  other  similar  oppressions  that  might 
be  mentioned,  gre\y  out  of  these  views  of  civil  o-overn- 
ment  and  political  economy  in  the  most  natural  manner 
imaginable,  and  were  in  no  essential  point,  distinguishable 
from  arrangements  which  prevail,  more  or  less,  amono-  the 
leading  civilized  and  professedly  Christian  nations  of  our 
own  times. 

The  labor  of  the  Hebrews  was  extorted  in  the  form  of 
a  tax,  payable  by  the  delivery,  at  stated  periods,  of  a  cer- 
tain number  of  bricks  ;  very  much  like  the  tax  levied, 
some  years  since,  by  the  Dutch  government  of  Java,  in 
the  East  Indies,  upon  the  native  Javanese,  and  payable  in 
specified  quantities  of  coffee  and  other  products.  The 
Hebrews  appear  to  have  been  taxed  to  the  full  amount  of 
their  ability  to  pay,  (a  standard  by  no  means  uncommon, 
as  millions  of  Englishmen  and  Irishmen  can  testify,)  and 
so  at  one  period  were  the  Javanese,  and  the  government 
warehouses  at  the  »  treasure  city"  of  Batavia  in  1818-19 

4 


02  DEMOCRACY  OF  CHRISTIANITY, 


were  said  to  contain  more  than  three-fourths  of  all  the 
joflee,  the  staple  product  that  was  then  raised  on  the 
island.  The  Hebrews  had  bread  and  clothing  :  the  almost 
literally  naked  Javanese  subsisted  on  spontaneous  pro-  • 
ductions.  Both  the  Hebrews  and  the  Javanese  were  under 
a  government  that  did  not  represent  them,  and  in  the  ad- 
ministration of  which  they  had  no  voice.  And  the  He- 
brews and  the  Javanese  were  both  oppressed  by  the  taxes 
levied  upon  them  as  they  could  not  have  been  by  a  sys- 
tem of  day  labor,  restricted  to  ten  hours  per  day,  or  some 
such  humane  regulation.  In  both  cases,  the  tax  was  on 
the  principle  of  class  legislation,  one  portion  of  the  people 
being  subject  to  it,  while  a  favored  class  were  exempt. 

It  was  for  the  iniquities  of  her  political  eco)io??iy  as  thus 
described,  a  policy  to  be  defined  as  being,  at  every  point, 
at  war  with  the  well-known  demands  of  the  democratic 
principle,  that  the  successive  plagues  of  Egypt,  in  quick 
succession,  and  in  token  of  the  divine  disapprobation  were 
inflicted  by  miracle  upon  her!  At  every  step  of  the  in- 
cipient process  which  led  to  the  perpetration  of  this  poli- 
tical wickedness,  a  slight  infusion  of  the  democratic  prin- 
ciple would  have  tended  strongly  to  turn  the  current  of 
affairs  in  another  direction  and  avert  the  catastrophe. 
The  monopoly  of  the  land  and  the  subsidy  of  the  priest- 
hood had  laid  the  foundation  of  the  despotism  under  which 
the  Hebrews  groaned,  and  it  was  no  source  of  consolation  or 
of  deliverance  to  them  that  this  arrangement  had  its  origin 
with  a  profound  political  economist,  a  virtuous  and  benev- 
olent statesman,  a  benefactor  of  their  ancestors,  and  by 
birth,  and  in  sympathy  and  interest  one  of  their  own  num- 
ber, his  own  children  sharing  their  lot  with  them. 

The  mischief  was  there,  in  the  violation  of  the  princi- 
ple of  democracy,  and  no  benevolence  or  foresight  on  the 
part  of  the  prince  who  had  enacted  it,  couldturn  aside  its 
effects  or  furnish  a  panacea  for  its  evils.  The  same  ar- 
rangement that  had  made  vassals  of  them  had  also  made 
serfs  of  the  Egyptians,  and  thus  cut  off  all  hopes  of  as- 


DEMOCRACY  OF  CHRISTIANITY.      .  G3 

sistance  from  tliat  quarter.  At  one  point  of  the  history- 
there  seemed  indeed  some  little  indication  of  a  popular 
rising  in  their  favor.  The  Nile  had  been  turned  into 
blood,  the  frogs,  the  lice  and  the  flies,  had  infested,  in 
turn,  the  whole  land,  a  "  grievous  murrain"  had  destroy- 
ed the  beasts,  and  '*  a  boil  breaking  forth  with  blains  upon 
man  and  upon  beast"  had  succeeded ;  the  hail  mingled 
with  fire  had  smitten  *' throughout  all  the  land  of  Egypt 
all  that  was  in  the  field,  both  man  and  beast,  and  every 
herb  and  tree  of  the  field  "  Then  it  was  that  some  of  the 
people  feared  the  word  of  the  Lord  and  took  shelter  from 
the  hail ;  "  and  Pharaoh's  servants  said  unto  him,  How 
long  shall  this  man  be  a  snare  unto  us  1  Let  the  men  go 
that  they  may  serve  the  Lord  their  God  :  Knowest  thou 
not  yet  that  Egypt  is  destroyed  V  This  truly  democratic 
remonstrance,  had  it  only  been  persisted  m,  and  consist- 
ently carried  out  by  the  mass  of  the  peoph  of  Egypt, 
might  have  averted  the  impending  judgments  of  heaven, 
the  plague  of  the  locusts,  the  thick  darkness,  the  destroy- 
ing angel  at  midnight,  and  the  final  overthrow  in  the  Red 
Sea.  Alas  !  The  spirit  of  democracy  and  of  human  broth- 
erhood was  not  in  them.  Other  and  rival  sentiments  had 
taken  possession  of  their  hearts  and  hardened  them  against 
God  and  humanity.  Too  long  had  they  been  servile  and 
knew  not  how  to  be  freemen.  Too  long  had  they  cringed 
before  a  despot  and  knew  not  how  to  trust  in  their  Crea- 
tor, Too  long  had  they  been  bewitched  with  dreams  of 
national  pride,  and  could  not  take  their  stand  resolutely 
and  lovingly  by  the  side  of  their  oppressed  fellow  men. 
Too  long  had  they  been  intoxicated  with  their  anti-demo- 
cratic theories  of  political  economy,  and  could  not  subor- 
dinate them  to  the  demands  of  inalienable  human  rights. 
Too  long  had  they  idolized  their  dead  ancestors  and  could 
not  practically  worship  their  living  God.  Too  long  had 
their  idle  veneration  of  ancient  institutions  and  forms  been 
permitted  to  eat  out  and  displace  the  spirit  in  which  all 
political  institutions  should  be  conceived  and  administer- 


64  DEMOCRACY    OF  CfnU^TIANITT. 

eel.  Too  long  had  they  relinquished  their  share  of  public 
responsibilities  and  knew  not  how  to  resume  them.  The 
democratic  principle  of  human  equality  and  equity  had 
been  supplanted  in  Egypt  by  the  opposite  principle  of  aris- 
tocracy, monopoly,  class  legislation,  and  injustice.  And 
God  said,  "  I  will  pass  through  the  land  of  Egypt  this 
night,  and  will  smite  all  the  land  of  Egypt,  both  man  and 
beast,  and  against  all  the  gods  [or  rulersj  of  Egypt  1  will 
execute  judgment:  1  am  the  Lord."  This  prediction  was 
fulfilled,  and  the  Hebrews  fled  "  And  the  Egyptians  pur- 
sued and  went  after  them  into  the  midst  of  the  sea,  even 
all  Pharaoh's  horses,  his  chariots,  and  his  horsemen." 
*  *  *  *         *  "And  Moses  stretched  forth 

his  hand  over  the  sea,  and  the  sea  returned  in  his  strength, 
when  the  morning  appeared,  and  the  Egyptians  fled 
against  it,  and  the  Lord  overthrew  the  Egyptians  in  the 
midst  of  the  sea."^ — Gen.  xiv. 

It  is  upon  the  principle  of  democratic  equality,  most 
assuredly,  and  upon  no  rival  principle,  that  we  can  vindi- 
cate the  justice  of  God  in  this  severe  retribution,  as  at- 
tested in  the  Christian  records. 

If  land  monopolies,  if  subsidized  priesthoods,  if  all-con- 
trolling and  overshadowing  dynasties,  if  the  abdication  of 
civil  government  by  the  masses  of  the  people,  if  magnificent 
and  costly  -works  of  national  aggrandizement  under  govern- 
mental supervision  and  by  over-tasked  laboi*,  if  class  legislations, 
if  taxes  grievous  to  be  borne,  imposed  upon  certain  classes, 
while  others  are  comparatively  exempted,  if  these  and  the  like 
of  them  are  in  accordance  with  the  mind  and  will  of  our  Great 
Father — nay,  if  He  does  not  loathe  and  abominate  them  with 
all  the  infinite  powers  of  His  great  heart;  if,  in  the  reason  and 
nature  of  things  there  be  not  a  good  and  solid  ground  for  His 
abhorrence  of  them,  and  if  it  were  not  of  vast  and  unspeakable 
importance  to  the  vital  interests  of  His  moral  government  over 
men,  to  the  Avelfare  of  human  beings  on  the  earth  to  the  end 
of  time,  and  the  right  moulding  of  their  characters  for  eternity, 
hat  God  should  signally  manifest  His  displeasure  on  account  of 


DEMOCKAfV  OF  CHKlSTiANlTY.  65 

t  liem,  in  the  very  infancy  of  civilization  and  as  a  beacon  to  all 
coming  generations  and  future  nations  of  the  earth,  then  per- 
haps, may  the  Bible  record  of  the  miraculous  plagues  of  Egypt 
bo  thought  incredible,  or  without  any  apparent  and  adequate 
moral  cause.  But  if  the  opposite  of  all  this  be  the  truth,  if  the 
principle  and  the  spirit  of  democratic  equality  and  common 
brotherhood  be  essential  characteristics  of  the  religion  revealed 
and  insisted  upon  in  the  Scriptures,  if  no  progress  in  the  re- 
demption and  elevation  of  our  lapsed  race  could  be  made  with- 
out the  restoration  of  this  principle  and  the  prevalence  of  this 
spirit,  then  it  is  not  difficult  to  see  and  appreciate  the  necessi- 
ty and  importance  of  just  such  a  manifestation  of  retributive 
justice  as  is  furnished  by  the  inspired  history  of  the  Hebrews 
in  Egypt.  It  is  just  what  we  might  reasonably  expect,  if  the 
second  table  of  the  divine  law  rests  upon  the  basis  of  inaliena- 
ble human  rights. 

And  this  view  may  furnish  a  commentary  on  the  devotional 
poetry  of  the  Hebrews  composed  on  this  thrilling  occasion,  and 
in  after  ages,  wherein  the  terrible  scenes  of  the  Egyptian  over- 
throw are  dwelt  upon  in  a  strain  of  triumph  and  adoration  that 
may  well  inspire  profound  awe,  and  that  sometimes  perplexes 
and  overwhelms  sensitive  and  delicate  minds. 

"  Then  sang  Moses  and  the  children  of  Israel  this  song  mito 
the  Lord,  saying,  I  will  sing  unto  the  Lord,  for  he  hath  tri- 
umphed gloriousl}^ ;  the  horse  and  his  rider  hath  he  thrown 
into  the  sea."  '••  *  ^^  "  And  Miriam,  the  proph- 
etess, the  daughter  of  Aaron,  took  a  timbrel  in  her  hand,  and 
all  the  women  went  out  after  her  with  timbrels  and  with  dances. 
And  Miriam  answered  them,  Sing  ye  to  the  Lord,  for  he  hath 
triumphed  gloriously ;  the  horse  and  his  rider  hath  he  thrown 
into  the  sea." — Ex.  xv. 

Centuries  afterwards,  the  strain  was  resumed  by  the  sweet 
Psalmist  of   Israel, 

"  0  give  thanks  unto  the  Lord  for  he  is  good,  for  his 
mercy  endureth  forever."  '•'         '-  *         *         '^ 

"  To  him  that  stretched  out  the  earth  above  the  waters  for  his 
mercy  endureth  forever;  to  him  that  made  great  lights,  for  his 
mercy  endureth  forever;  the  sun  to  rule  by  da}^  for  his  mercy 
endureth  forever;  the  moon  and  stars  to  rule  by  night,  for  his 
mercy  endureth  forever.     To  him  that  smote  Egypt  in  their 


66  DEMOCRACY    OF    CHRISTIANITY. 

first-born,  for  his  mercy  endureth  forever,  and  brought  out 
Israel  from  among  them,  for  his  mercy  endureth  forever.  With 
a  high  hand  and  an  outstretched  arm,  for  his  mercy  endureth 
forever.  To  him  which  divided  the  Red  Sea  into  parts,  for  his 
mercy  endureth  forever;  and  made  Israel  to  pass  through  the 
midst  of  it,  for  his  mercy  endureth  forever;  but  overthrew 
Pharaoh  and  his  hosts  in  the  Red  Sea,  for  his  mercy  endureth 
forever." — Ps.  cxxxvi. 

Is  it  objected  to  these  poems  that  they  breathe  the  spirit  of 
ancient  barbarism  and  revenge?  Or  is  it  inexplicable  that 
meek-eyed  "mevcy^'  as  Avell  as  inflexible  justice  is  recognized 
as  characterizing  the  divine  conduct  on  the  memorable  occa- 
sion the  song  celebrates  ? 

To  this  objection  let  it  be  answered  that  the  song  breathes 
no  spirit  of  barbarism  or  of  malice,  but  of  the  deepest  and  ho- 
liest love  to  the  common  brotherhood  of  man.  And  let  the 
enigma  find  its  solution  in  a  remembrance  of  the  "  mere?/"  to 
all  the  future  nations  and  generations  of  mankind,  as  well  as 
to  the  Hebrews,  that  was  wrapped  up  in  that  terrible  over- 
throw of  the  incorrigible  and  self-ruined  Egyptians.  Until  men 
repudiate  all  ideas  of  inalienable  human  rights  and  of  corres- 
ponding penal  law  for  the  protection  of  them,  let  all  who  prize 
liberty  and  abhor  oppression  devoutly  join  with  the  inspired 
Hebrew  poets  in  celebrating  Jehovah's  own  triumphant  vindi- 
cation of  human  freedom,  his  indignation  against  oppression. 
While  men  love  liberty  as  they  love  the  light,  let  their  grati- 
tude for  the  preservation  of  the  former  be  expressed  in  the 
same  sacred  verse  that  expresses  their  gratitude  for  the  lumi- 
naries of  heaven  that  mve  them  the  latter ;  a  sono-  that  well 
deserves  its  unfading  immortality,  as  the  grand  "  Marseillois'* 
of  universal  humanity  and  freedom,  for  all  ages,  breathing  no 
threats  of  revengeful  slaughter,  but  reverently  celebrating  the 
merciful  judgments  of  Him  who  has  said — ''  Vengeance  is 
mine — I  will  repay." 

In  remembrance  of  antedeluvian  violence  and  of  the  merci- 
ful deluge  that  interrupted  and  ended  it — in  reaicrabrance  of 
what  universal  history  reveals  to  us  of  the  nature  and  charac- 
ter of  man  and  of  the  wrongs  hiuuauity  bufters,  notwithstand- 


UEMOCRACV  UF  CHlUaTlAN  IIY.  ij  i 

ing  all  tlie  restraints  and  warnings  interposed  by  divine  retri- 
butions, let  us  ponder  more  deeply  than  we  have  been  wont  to 
do,  the  story  of  Egypt,  and  say  whether  we  should  probably 
liave  had  an  endurable  and  a  habitable  world  of  mercy  and  of 
probation,  to-day,  but  for  the  scenes  recorded  in  the  exodus  of 
the  Hebrews,  and  celebrated  in  the  son c>-s  of  Moses,  of  Miriam, 
and  of  David. 

Let  it  be  borne  in  mind  that  the  scene  of  these  astonishing 
events  lies  far  back,  on  the  historic  canvass,  before  even  one  of 
the  so-called  ancient  republics  had  been  founded.  Let  it  be 
remembered  that  the  bards  who  sang  the  Eoyptian  overthrow 
had  thrilled  the  nations  with  their  songs  of  victorious  freedom, 
and  made  the  tyrants  of  antiquity  to  tremble  upon  their  thrones 
for  ao'es  before  Homer  or  Heroditus  were  born,  or  Lvcuro-us 
or  Solon  had  appeared.  Let  the  philosophical  student  of 
history  consider  all  this,  and  then  say  whether  it  be  extrava- 
gant to  trace  all  the  civil  and  religious  liberty  that  men  have 
ever  enjoyed  since  the  exodus  from  Egypt,  to  the  moral  influ- 
ences associated,  directly  or  more  remotely,  with  that  wonder- 
ful story.  Who  can  tell  whether  the  idea  of  equal  and  inalien- 
able human  rights  could  have  been  otherwise  restored  or  pre- 
served to  mankind  than  by  such  a  series  of  miraculous  and 
overwhelming  judgments  as  should  convince  the  w^orld,  then  sunk 
in  the  grossest  forms  of  idolatry,  that  there  was  one  only  living 
and  true  God,  the  common  Creator  of  all  men,  who  regarded 
impartially  the  equal  rights  of  all,  and  would  never  permit 
them  to  be  violated  with  impunity  ? 

That  impression  once  produced  and  perpetuated  by  the 
bards  and  the  historians  of  antiquity,  might  furnish  a  key  to 
the  providential  government  of  God  over  the  nations,  in  all  fu- 
ture time,  though  less  signally  marked  by  the  miraculous,  the 
mysterious,  and  the  terrible.  Such  a  providential  control  once 
recognized,  could,  thenceforward,  be  readily  traced,  and  refer- 
red to  the  regular  operation  of  moral  laws  engraven  by  the 
Creator  upon  man's  social  being,  and  running  parallel  to  his 
existence.  Such,  if  we  mistake  not,  is  the  use  actually  made 
of  these  wonderful  events,  by  the  succeeding  writers  of  the 


08  DK.iOCKACV    Oi'     CniSTIA^-iXy. 

Scriptures.     The  histories  of  Israel  and  Judah  in  connexion 
with  those  of  the  surrounding  nations,  the  commentaries  upon 
these  histories  furnished  by  the  predictions,  tlie  warnings,  the 
admonitions,  the  denunciations  of  the  inspired  prophets,  all  run 
in  the  same  direction  vvith  the  plagues  and   the  ovrethrow  of 
Egypt,  and  are  sometimes  expressly  coupled  with  it,  with  the 
overthrow  of  the  cities  of  the  plain  by  fire,  and  of  the  old  world 
by  the  deluge.     In  all  these,  the  great  sin  of  oppression,  es- 
pecially oi poiitical  oppression  is  kept  prominent,  is  ranked  with 
idol  worship  and  the   grossest  forms  of  sin,  and  Jehovah,  the 
God  of  the  Hebrews,  the  God  of  all  the  earth,  is  everywhere 
represented  as  inspecting,  superintending,  overruling  and  con- 
trolling all  the  nations  of  the  earth,  with  a  view  to  the  punishment 
of  pohtical  as  well  as  individual  ineqnahty,  iniquity,  and  injustice. 
One  farther  recognition  of  the  democratic  principle  in  the 
divine  dealings  with  the  Egyptians  is  of  too  much  importance  to 
be  passed  over  without  particular  notice.     The  oppression  of 
of  the  Hebrews,  as  we  have  said,  was  apolitical  oppression.    It 
was  a  goverraental  wrong,  not  the  injury  of  the  Hebrews  or  of 
individuals  of  them  by  individual  Egyptians,  or  by  mere  pred- 
atory and  irregular  hordes  or  assemblages  of  them.     It  was  by 
edict  of  the  reigning  monarch,  in  the  form  recognized  as  con- 
stituting valid  la\v.     It  was  in  harmony  with  the  constitutional 
usages  and  ancient  arrangements  of  the  empire,  and  grew  out 
of  them  in  the  most  natural  manner,  fortifying  itself,  at  every 
step,  no  doubt,  with  all  the  analogies  and  precedents  furnished 
by  the  previous  history.     It  v>-as,  moreover,  a  measure  of  poli- 
tical econoni}^,  sanctioned  by  the  wisest  statesmen  and  tacitly 
approved  by  the  authorized  priesthood  and  princes  of  the  na- 
tion.    How  comes  it  to  pass,  then,  that  vre  find  the  punishment 
of  this  political  iniquity  visited,  not  upon  the  reigning  monarch 
alone  with  his  councillors,  princes,  and  priesthood,  but  likewise 
upon  the  masses  of  the  Egyptian  people  1     Since    miraculous 
retributions  were  employed^  in  whicli  God  made  a  signal  dis- 
tinction between  the  Hebrews  and  their  oppressors,   why  was 
it  that  no  similar  discrimination  was  made  between  the  govern- 
ment  of  Egypt  and  the  people  f 


UEMOCKACV   OF  CIIKISTIANITV. 


69 


The  people  ^Ycre  the  victims,  to  some  extent,  of  similar   op- 
pressions themselves.     The  reigning  monarch  and  his  comicil- 
lors  did  noU recognize  in  the  Egyptian  people,  any  of  the  ele  - 
ments  of  political  power.    The  people  themselves  made  no  such 
pretensions.     The  constitutional  usages  of  their  country  accor- 
ded to  them  nothing  of  the  kind.     They  had  no  voice   in   the 
selection  of  their  rulers,  nor  in  the  framing  of  their  edicts.    Nor 
is  it  probable  that  one  in  a  thousand  of  them    ever  thought  of 
it  as   injury   that   they   were  debarred  from  such  privileges. 
Lille  other  besotted  sensualists  and  idolaters,  who  had  lost  the 
knowledge  of  the  Common  Father  and  the  equal  brotherh  jod  of 
mankind,  their  ''leeks,  and  onions,  and  flesh-pots"  amply  satis- 
tied  them,  and  they  felt  it  no  particular  hardship  to  resign  the 
responsibilities  of  civil  government  to  those  who  claimed  and 
exercised  the  exclusive  monopoly  of  them.    No  modern  declar- 
ations of  inalienable  human  rights  and  of  the  social  duties  wrapped 
up  in  them,  had  ever  fallen  upon  their  dull  ears.     No  gleams 
of  the  democratic  principle  either  from  the  New  Testament  or 
the  Old,  had  ever  greeted  their  eyes ;  no  pen  of  sage  or  historian, 
no  voice  of  seer  or  song  of  bard  had  ever  conveyed  to  them 
the  story  of  the  lied  Sea,  still  in  the  womb  of  the  future.    Why, 
then,  were  the  masses  of  Egypt  doomed  for  political  crime  ?  On 
what  principle,  by  what  theory,  what  fundamental  law  of  po- 
litical science  was  the  divine  procedure  based,  when  ''  at  mid- 
night, God  smote  all  the  first-born  in  the  land  of  Egypt,   from 
the  first-born  of  Pharaoh  that  sat  upon  his  throne  unto  the  first 
born  of  the  captive  that  was  in  the  dungeon ;    '''     *   and  there 
was  a  great  cry  in  Egypt,  for  there  was   not  an  house  Avhere 
there  was  not  one  dead?"— J^o:.  xii.  29,  30. 

What  did  God  teach  by  all  this?  Was  it  the  doctrine  then 
prevalent  in  Egypt,  and  which  needed  no  miracle  nor  retribu- 
tion for  its  propogation— the  doctrine  that  in  most  heathen  and 
anti-Christian  nations  is  practically  recognized  still— the  doctrmc 
that  the  responsibilities  of  civil  government  are  committed  only 
to  a  particular  caste,  to  a  favored  race,  to  a  royal  family,  to  a 
select  few  ? 

If  God  had  considered  the  reigning  dynasty   of  Egypt    the 


70  DEMOCKACV  OF  OHRISTIANITV. 

legitimate  government,  in  an  absolute  sense,  so  that  the  rest  of 
the  nation  were  not  responsible  for  their  acts,  can  it  be  credible 
that  in  a  miraculous  retribution  (where  '■'  the  laws  of  nature  " 
could  not  be  adverted  to  as  the  cause)  a  retribution  designed 
to  point  out  and  punivsh  political  wickedness,  for  a  warning  to 
all  nations  and  ages,  He  would  so  signally  have  punished  the 
masses  of  the  people  w^ith  their  rulers  ? 

Or  if  instead  of  recognizing  the  reigning  dynasty  as  the  le- 
gitimate government,  God  had  accounted,  as  some  do,  the  wisest 
and  best  of  the  nation,  more  or  less,  or  however  obscure,  as 
constituting  exclusively  the  civil  governors  of  the  nation,  and 
bound  to  exercise  their  high  powers  in  the  punishment  of 
crime,  why  did  He  not  arraign  them  for  their  delinquincy  of 
service,  instead  of  proceeding  to  an  indiscriminate  punishment 
of  the  masses  ?  Does  God  punish  for  political  offences  those  to 
whom  He  has  committed  no  political  responsibilities — no  polit- 
ical authority  or  power  ? 

The  truth  seems  to  be  that  God  did  regard  and  treat  the 
•people  of  Egypt  as  constituting,  in  truth  and  in  reaht}',  the 
government  of  Egypt.  The  numerical  and  physical  power  was 
theirs.  The  intellectual  power,  too,  was  theirs,  if  they  had  only 
been  disposed  to  wield  it,  as  the}^  ought  to  have  done.  God  had 
given  them  thpir  rational  and  social  natures,  and  placed  them 
together  in  a  community.  Relations  were  thus  created,  and  duties 
growing  out  of  these  relations  which  none  but  themselves  could 
discharge.  Their  Pharaohs  might  assume  and  promise  to  dis- 
charge them,  and  the  people  wilHng  enough  to  transfer  their 
duties  to  others,  might  "love  to  have  it  so."  But  God  would 
have  them  know  that  He  held  them  responsible,  nevertheless. 
Their  own  Avaihng  shrieks  at  midnight  should  proclaim  it  to 
themselves  and  to  all  nations,  to  tlie  end  of  time,  since  nothing- 
short  of  this  process  could  instruct  them,  and  rouse  to  a  sense 
of  their  true  dignity  and  high  destiny  the  masses  of  mankind. 

In  perfect  keeping  with  this  lesson  are  the  subsequent  teach- 
ings of  the  Bible,  in  its  history,  its  poetry,  its  predictions,  its 
promises,  its  denunciations,  its  wai-nings.  All  these  are  pre- 
eminently saturated  \\\\Xi political  instruction  and  admonition: 


DEMOCRACY  OF    CHRISTIANITV.  i  1 

all  these  are  addressed  to  the  people  at  large,  ^xv^rvoiio^^dezi 
few.  The  people,  the  nation,  and  the  government  are  every 
where  so  connected  and  identified  that  the  mass  of  the  people 
are,  all  along,  held  responsible  for  the  acts  of  the  government, 
andthreaten°ed  with  punishment  for  national  and  political  crimes. 
Moses,  in  his  Deuteronomy,  and  the  principal  prophets  m  the 
books  bearing  their  names,  are  full  of  exemplifications  in  pomt, 
and  to  present  the  evidence  would  be  to  transcribe  a  large  por- 
tion of  their  writings. 

AN  EXPLANATION. 

^  The  view  we  have  now  taken  of  the  history  of  the  Hebrews 
in  Egypt,  is  so  different  from  any  thing  found  in  the  commonly 
approved  commentaries  on  that  event,  that  some  may  regard  it 
with  distrust,  as  conflicting  with  the  accounts  generally  given 
(and  which  appear  rational  and  important)  of  the  great  end 
God  had  in  view  in  those  remarkable  transactions.  The  writer, 
however,  is  not  conscious  of  any  discrepancy  between  his  state- 
ments and  those  commonly  received.  What  he  has  said  of  the 
divine  purpose  in  those  events,  he  offers  not  as  displacing  the 
instructions  commonly  derived  from  that  portion  of  Scripture, 
but  in  addition  to  them.  He  finds  no  difficulty  in  admitting  the 
generally  received  commentaries  to  be  mainly  correct  and  im- 
portant so  far  as  they  go,  but  thinks  it  more  than  possible  that, 
here  and  elsewhere,  the  vast  treasures  of  divine  knowledge 
contained  in  the  Scriptures  are  very  far  from  having  been^  ex- 
hausted, and  that  much  more'instruction  is  yet  to  be  derived 

from  them. 

A  late  writer  who  has  been  justly  received  with  favor  by  the 
religious  public  *  has  given  a  new  view,  in  some  respects,  of  the 
entire  history  of  the  Hebrews  and  of  their  deliverance  from 
Eoypt;  and  yet  there  is  little  or  nothing  in  his  view  that  essen- 
tially conflicts  with  or  disparages  the  commentators  that  had 
preceded  him.  He  only  throws  new  gleams  of  light  over  the 
canvass,  and  directs  attention  to  particulars  that  had  escaped 
the  notice  of  his  predecessor  «i.     It  is  possible,  too,  that  he  lias 

♦  The  author  of  "  Philosophy  of  t  -le  Plan  oi  Salvation." 


'''^  I3EM0CRACY    Of    CIlKlSTlAKlTr. 

left  work  for  more  than  one  writer  who  may  survey  the  ^ame 
ground  over  agam  after  him.  On  the  shore  of  such  a  vast 
ocean  of  truth  as  is  presented  in  the  Bible,  there  need  be  no 
fear  that  any  one  explorer  will  basket  up  all  the  rich  shells  nor 
increduhty  when  a  new  adventurer  is  bold  to  exhibit  a  fresh 
collection  of  them. 

If  it  be  said  that  God  punished  the  Egyptians  for  their  treat- 
ment o.H,.  chosen  people,  and  a«  a  means  of  their  deliverance 
out  of  bondage,  the  statement  is  true,  but  it  does  not  displace  the 
more  general  statement  that  He  punished  them  for  their  viola- 
tions of  mahenable  human  rights  and  as  a  warning  to  oppress- 
ors mall  ag^s,  thus  vindicating  the  fundamental  principles  of 
equality  and  human  freedom.  The  Hebrews  were  God's  cho 
sen  people,  not  for  their  own  superior  goodness,  as  He  often  re- 
minded them,  but  on  account  of  His  promise  to  Abraham;  and 
ha  prom,.-e  was  that  in  him  all  the  nadonsofthe  earth  should 
be  blessed.  To  tins  promise  the  ,vhole  process  of  Hebrew 
irannng  was  conformed,  and  their  history  is  instructive  not  to 
them  alone,  but  to  the  whole  world. 

The  writer  just  now  alluded  to  considers  the  miracles  and 
p  agues  of  igypt  as  directed,  specincally  and  signallv,  against 
Aoobectsof.hen-  idolatroMs  veneration-the  serp'ents  the 
me,  the  hsh,  the  fly-god,  their  altars  of  worship,  tLirlt* 
their  god  Serapis  who  was  supposed  to  protect  them  fr  ,m  lo- 
custs, and  their  other  false  gods.  He  supposes  that  these  mira- 
cles were  necessary  to  restore  to  the  heathen  mind  the  idea  of 
the  power  and  e.xistence  of  the  one  only  true  God,  as  well  as  to 
recall  the  attention,  the  reverence,  and  the  affectionate  obedi- 
ence of  the  Hebrews  to  the  God  of  their  fathers,  now  manifest- 
ing Hmself  as  their  Dehvercn,  and  demonstrating  His  infinite 

laSeX: ' ^"""■^"""'  "'^'^"'"-^ -'^-'^ g-«d» 

All  this,  and  much  more  whicli  ih^  ^w.'f  „ 
edwithwhatothere..positors.:::iVllS^:S~ 
not  a  whit  from  the  credibility  or  the  importance  of  wtt  w 
lave  been  attempting  to  cvhibit  in  theprecedingpa.es      On 
Uieotherhandthemorecomprehensive,f„!,,andpr:fu,idare°" 


DEMOCRACr  OF  CllKISTIAXiy. 


conceptions  of  the  grand  work  of  religious  culture,  for  the  benefit 
of  all  nations,  Avrapped  up  in  the  dealings  of  God  with  the 
Egyptians,  the  more  of  significancy  and  solemnity  shall  we  be 
prepared  to  give  to  each  particular  part  of  the  lesson  that  goes 
to  make  up  the  great  whole.  Our  argument  seeks  to  establish 
the  unity  of  the  true  religion,  as  revealed  in  the  Bible,  with  the 
democratic  principles  of  equality  and  freedom.  And  if  we  find 
these  principles  taught  with  great  distinctness  and  emphasis,  as 
we  think  we  do,  in  the  tragedy  of  Egypt,  where  so  many  other 
great  truths  of  religion  are  taught  also,  our  argument  is  the 
more  strongly  confirmed.  The  manifold  wisdom  and  power  of 
C4od  are  clearly  seen,  when  so  many  important  truths  are  taught 
by  a  single  stroke  of  His  hand.  And  the  Book  that  records 
and  celebrates  His  mighty  deeds,  unfolding  such  rich  and  varied 
lessonsof  instruction,  may  well  be  confidingly  received  as  of 
divine  origin.  Its  credentials  are  within  itself,  and  will  be  read 
by  those  who  use  the  volume  for  the  high  purposes  for  which 
it  was  given,  the  evidence  becoming  brighter  and  brighter  with 
every  new  vein  of  wisdom  it  yields  to  us. 


CHAPTER  VL 

THE    HEBREW     COMMONWEALTH— THE     INSTITUTIONS    01-"     MOSES. 
THE    MATERIALS. 

The  bondage  and  the  deliverance  of  the  Hebrews  were  no 
fortuitous  or  Isolated  events.  They  Avere  appointed  of  God, 
and  were  necessary  steps  in  the  process  of  the  training  of  that 
remarkable  people,  set  apart  for  the  prospective  and  ultimate 
instruction  of  the  whole  family  of  man,  in  all  that  pertains  to 
their  rational  and  immortal  natures,  their  rehgion,  their  morals, 
their  social  relations,  their  duties,  their  rights,  their  political 
condition  in  the  present  life,  their  character  and  destiny  m  the 
life  to  come.     The  Messiah,  the  anointed  of  God,  the  desire  of 


"74  DEMOCKACi^    OF    CHRISTIANITY. 

all  nations,  the  Prince  of  Peace,  the  Councillor,  the  King  of 
kings  and  Lord  of  lords,  was  to  appear  among  them,  and  for 
His  advent  the  nation  must  needs  be  prepared  by  previous 
centuries  of  progressive  instruction  and  elevation. 

The  bondage  in  Egypt  and  the  sojourn  in  the  wilderness, 
were  necessary  steps  in  this  course  of  training,  for  God  does 
nothing  in  vain,  nor  does  He  capriciously  afflict  the  children  of 
men. 

The  human  family  had  again  become  degraded  and  brutish, 
superstitious  and  servile.  They  worshipped  the  emblems  and 
personifications  of  vileness,  of  impurity,  of  injustice,  and  became 
assimulated  to  the  objects  of  their  worship.*  The  bond  of  hu- 
man brotherhood  was  obscured  if  not  broken.  The  masses, 
everywhere,  were  the  victims  of  oppression,  and  had  lost  all 
knowledge  or  remembrance  of  their  long  lost  dignity  and 
rights.  Something  must  needs  be  done,  to  restore  at  least,  some 
portion  of  the  great  family  of  man  to  a  knowledge  of  their  Com- 
mon Father,  to  a  knowledge  and  recognition  of  their  equal 
brotherhood,  to  a  knowledge  of  their  rights,  that  beino-  thus 
restored,  they  might  become  the  medium  of  divine  influences 
and  appliances  for  the  ultimate  elevation  of  all  the  tribes  and 
kindreds  of  the  earth,  without  subjecting  every  kino-dom  and 
tribe  to  the  same  process,  and  enacting  the  tragedy  of  Eoypt 
over  ao-ain,  in  each  case. 

What  could  be  done  for  such  objects  ?  The  Bible  record 
informs  us  what  was  done.  The  call  of  Abraham  and  the  iso- 
lation of  his  descendants,  was  one  step  of  the  process.  The 
bondage  in  Egypt  was  another,  the  deliverance  by  miraculous 
retributions  was  another,  the  sojourn  in  the  wilderness  was 
another,  and  so  on,  till  new  instructions,  new  laws,  new  institu- 
tions, new  forms  of  worship,  and  new  modes  of  civil  govern- 
ment placed  them  in  a  new  and  vastly  improved  position  and 
condition,  distinguishing  them  from  all  the  rest  of  the  world. 

*  Tiie  writer  ficknovvledi^es  his  inJobtedness  to  the  author  of  '«  The 
Piiilosophy  of  tlie  Plan  of  SalvalioiV  for  some  of  the  ideas  that  have 
given  shape  t)  this  p^ratrraph,  though  the  main  thought  was  in  his  mind, 
and  thi.^  part  of  the  book  in  progress,  before  he  chanced  to  meet  with  that 
interesting  work. 


DEMOCRACY  OF  CIIRISXIANITY.  /O 

In  tke  religious  training  they  thus  received,  there  was  in- 
voh^ed,  all  along,  a  political  training.  This  fact  is  visible  on 
the  face  of  the  record,  and  it  teaches  us  that  the  religion  of  the 
]3ible  has  much  to  do  with  politics,  as  it  must  needs  do,  if  it 
includes  morals,  and  if  morality  is  to  be  recognized  in  our  po- 
litical duties  and  relations. 

The  bondao-e  in  Egypt,  though  in  some  respects  disadvan- 
tageous to  the  Hebrews,  as  exposing  them  to  the  influences  of 
heathenism,  and  tending  to  make  them  servile  (disadvantages 
to  be  overcome  afterwards,  by  their  deliverance  and  subsequent 
training)  was  calculated,  nevertheless,  to  impress  many  salutary 
lessons  upon  them,  Avhich  in  no  other  way  that  we  know  of,  could 
have  been  so  effectively  taught  them.  The  value  of  the  most 
precious  blessings  is  learned  only,  in  many  cases,  by  the  loss 
of  them,  and  the  most  aggravating  circumstances  are  some- 
times requisite,  to  make  the  loss  felt,  as  it  should  be.  The 
blessing  of  civil  and  religious  liberty  is  no  exception  to  these 
remarks.  We  know  of  nations  to  whom  this  precious  gift  is 
committed  and  who  seem  to  form  no  just  estimate  of  its  value. 
And  we  know  of  other  nations  deprived  of  the  prccisus  boon, 
who  never  seem  to  miss  it,  or  to  manifest  any  ardent  aspira- 
tions for  the  enjoyment  of  it.  Had  the  burthens  of  the  He- 
brews been  less  grievous,  had  their  physical  and  social  condi- 
tion been  less  unendurable,  their  "leeks,  and  onions,  and  flesh- 
pots,"  might  have  made  them  content  where  they  Avere,  with- 
out the  desire  or  even  the  conception  of  any  nobler  or  more 
dio-nified  position  in  the  scale  of  intellectual  and  moral  being. 
Their  deliverance  and  freedom  in  the  contrast  with  their  gall- 
ino-  bondage,  (so  often  adverted  to  by  their  deliverer  in  his 
messao-e  to  them)  was  well  adapted  to  quicken  their  concep- 
tions of  the  glory  and  dignity  of  being  free  men,  the  ignominy 
and  shame  of  being  servile. 

Their  sore  afflictions  and  the  deep  injuries  they  had  receiv- 
ed from  the  Egyptians,  in  connexion  with  the  signal  judgments 
of  Heaven  on  their  oppressors,  and  their  own  miraculous  eacape 
fromthenv,  were  all  well  calculated  not  only  to  wean  them  from 
the  idolatries  of  the  Egyptians,  to  impress  them  with  the  in- 


^6  DEMOCKACi-  OF  C111116T1AMTV. 

finite  majesty  and  power  of  the  God  of  their  fathers,  .who  had 
thus  triumphed  over  their  oppressors,  and  to  inspire  them  with 
sentiments  of  love  and  gratitude  towards  Him  for  the  blessings 
of  restored  freedom — but  in  all  this  process,  there  was  a 
strong  tendency  to  cement  them  closely  together,  to  make  them 
one  people,  to  bind  them  in  one  bundle  by  the  strong  cords  of 
mutual  sympathy,  common  sufferings,  common  fears,  common 
hopes,  common  dangers,  common  deliverances,  and  common 
triumphs.  The  author  before  alluded  to,  takes  notice  of  this, 
and  supposes  that  the  divine  purpose  in  this  providential  ar- 
rangement was  to  make  that  wonderful  people  so  completely 
one,  that  no  political  vicissitudes,  thenceforward,  should  so  sever 
them,  as  to  annihilate  their  national  existence,  a  result  actually 
witnessed,  to  the  present  day,  even  in  their  dispersion,  and 
without  a  parallel  in  the  world's  histoiy. 

Now,  in  all  this,  what  have  we  but  another  and  an  indelible 
impression  upon  that  nation,  of  the  original  fact  of  a  common 
brotherhood,  equality,  and  unity,  so  branded  into  them  by  the 
fires  of  affliction  as  never  to  be  effaced  ?  This  preserves  to  us, 
down  to  our  nineteenth  century  of  the  Christian  era,  an  unbro- 
ken and  well  authenticated  line  of  succession  from  Abraham 

nay,  from  Noah — from  Adam,  reaching  even  to  the  present 
hour,  and  attesting  the  oneness,  not  only  of  the  Hebrews,  but 
of  the*  human  race,  connected  as  all  nations  are,  by  the  records 
of  that  same  people,  with  the  descendants  of  Noah,  the  known 
and  acknowledged  ancestor  of  the  Hebrews;  insomuch  that 
their  own  affinity  with  the  Gentiles  (who  were  to  be  blessed  in 
their  own  Abraham)  is  certified  by  their  own  boasted  pedigree, 
and  thus  the  Jewlsk  brotherhood,  so  effectually  impressed^  so 
astonishingly  preserved,  becomes,  in  the  full  manifestation  of 
their  own  promised  Messiah,  the  bond  of  the  brotherhood  of 
the  whole  race.  The  idea  of  brotherhood  thus  impressed  upon 
the  Hebrews,  along  with  the  other  essential  ideas  of  the  true 
religion,  is,  with  them,  transmitted  and  transferred  to  all  na- 
tions, and  the  middle  wall  of  partition  between  Jews  and  Gen- 
tiles, having  answered  its  end  in  this  and  other  important  i-espects, 
is  ultimately  broken  down,  and  the  whole  world  becomes  one' 


DEMOCR.^r    OF    CllPvlSTlAKITY.  i  i 

Tims  Avc  sec  how  all  the  essential  ideas  involved  in  liie 
democratic  principle  vrere  impressively  taught  to  the  Hebrews, 
and,  as  far  as  practicable,  restored  to  them,  and  actually 
wrought  into  their  national  character  to  the  same  extent  that 
the  other  essential  religious  ideas  were  wrought  into  them  ; 
furthermore,  that  this  was  affected  by  the  same  divine  meth- 
ods, and  to  the  same  magnificent  end,  namely,  the  elevation, 
first,  of  a  great  nation,  and  ultimately,  of  the  entire  family  of 
man — to  the  dignity  of  holiness  and  freedom. 

The  training  to  which  the   Hebrews  were  subjected  in  the 
wilderness,  w^as  evidently  marked  out  by  the  same  sublime  pur- 
pose   and  subordinated  to  the  same  grand  end.     And  among 
other  important  lessons  taught  them  in  that  tedious  and  trying 
sojourn  were  those  best  fitted  to  prepare  them  for  the  use  and 
enjoyment  of  their  rights  as  free  men.     All  their  religious  train- 
ing contributed  indeed,   among  other  things,  to  that  end,  but 
some  incidents  seem  particularly  and  especially  adapted  to  the 
purpose.     The  peculiar  vices  of  a  servile  and  degraded  people 
needed  peculiar  discipline,  and  that  discipline  w^as  supplied. 
Overtasked  though  they  had  been,  yet  they  had  contracted 
an  ignoble  and  enslaving  appetite  for  the  luxuries  of  their  op-. 
jDressors,  altogether  unbefitting  a  nation  of  hardy,  self-denying, 
and  self-controlled  freemen,  as  they  Avere  now  invited  and  des- 
tined to  become.     The  brutal  lusts  as  well  as  the  abominable 
idolatries  of  their  house  of  bondage   were  to  be  crucified  or 
they  could  never  rise  from  the  low  condition  of  sensuality  in 
which  the  enjoyments  of  the  table  constituted  their  ideal  of 
the  supreme  good,  to  the  rank  of  an  intellectual  and  spiritual- 
ized community,  conversant  with  the  great  principles  of  reli- 
gion and  ethics  that  must  lie  at  th3  basis  of  a  virtuous  and  well- 
regulated  commonwealth,  in  the  exercise  of  liberty  because  in 
subjection  to  law. 

Whoever  understands  human  physiology,  the  connexion  be- 
tween the  body  and  the  mind,  between  both  and  the  moral 
manif^estations,  between  these  latter  and  the  miintenancc  of 
civil  and  political  freedom,  need  be  in  no  doubt  in  respect  to 
the  divine  goodness  and  wisdom  displayed  in  the  dietetic  re^i- 


78 


DEMOCRACY  OK  CHRISTIAN  IT  Y. 


men  of  the  Hebrews  in  the  wilderness  and  the  final  result  of 
tlie  discipline,  notwithstanding  their  struggles  against  it,  and 
tiie  severe  punishments  they  incurre-d.  Bearing  in  mind  that 
God  intended  them  to  become  the  first  nation  of  freemen,  the 
depositaries  of  incipient  and  embryo  democratic  institutions  to 
be  perfected  in  due  time,  aixl  transmitted  to  all  the  nations  of 
the  earth,  the  story  becomes,  to  the  philosophic  mind,  full  of 
meaning: — the  manna — the  quails — the  reproof  of  their  repi- 
nings— when  "  He  gave  them  their  request,  but  sent  leanness 
unto  their  souls."  All  this  was  just  what  infinite  wisdom  and 
mercy  had  to  do,  of  course,  if  such  an  end  were  to  be  accom- 
plished, and  if  the  laws  of  human  nature,  in  the  meantime, 
were  to  be  unrepealed.  This  is  only  saying  that  a  thing  can- 
not be  accomphshed,  and  yet  left  unaccomplished,  at  the  same 
time. 

If,  instead  of  tracing  the  growth  and  progress  of  the  princi- 
ple of  democracy,  under  these  providential  dealings,  w^e  were 
tracing  the  progress  of  the  manifestation  and  development  of  a 
spiritual  religion,  during  the  same  period  of  history,  and  in  the 
enacting  of  the  same  scenes,  we  should  be  led  to  make  very 
similar  observations.  And  this  shows  the  close  connexion  be- 
tween the  principle  of  democracy  and  a  spiritual  religion,  both 
of  which,  under  the  good  providence  of  God,  have  to  be  nur- 
tured and  preserved  by  one  and  the  same  process,  "  not  joyous 
but  grievous,"  for  a  season,  to  those  who  are  placed  under  the 
discipline. 

Like  every  other  community  in  a  state  of  transition  from  ser- 
vihty  to  freedom,  and  comprehending  but  imperfectly  the  new 
state  of  things  into  which  they  were  about  to  be  introduced,  the 
Hebrews  in  the  wilderness,  at  intervals,  exhibited  frightful 
manifestations  of  anarchy,  revolt,  impatience  with  the  just  re- 
straints of  good  government,  insubordination  to  law,  and  even 
a  disposition  to  relinquish  the  prospects  before  them,  and  re- 
turn back  again  into  bondage.  On  one  occasion  indeed,  even 
before  the  exodus  from  Egypt,  while  fearing  that  the  interpo- 
sition of  Moses  on  their  behalf  would  prove  unavailing  and 
only  render  their  condition  the  more  intolerable,  (which  for  a 


DKMOCRACY  OF  CHRISTIANITY^.  '79 

time,  appeared  to  be  the  prospect)  they  loaded  their  benefactor 
with  reproaches,  and  entreated  him  to  remit  his  exertions.  But 
all  this  did  not  change  the  purpose  of  Moses  or  of  God,  to  make 
of  them  a  free  people,  even  though  it  became  necessary  to 
wait  for  another  and  a  better  trained  generation  to  come  on 
the  stage  of  action,  before  the  benevolent  design  could  be  fully 
accomplislied. 

In  all  this  we  have  God's  answer  to  objections  made  against 
democracy,  in  later  times,  on  account  of  similar  manifestations 
of  disorder.  And  we  have  His  ovfu  divine  example,  superadd- 
ed to  that  of  Moses,  for  the^encouragement  of  those  who  labor, 
against  similar  obstacles,  to  obtain  the  same  objects,  with  no 
present  rewards  but  ingratitude,  and  little  hopes  of  succeed- 
ing, except  with  posterity. 

THE  FABRIC. 

Having  thus  traced  the  process  by  which  God  provided  ma- 
terials for  the  Hebrew  commonwealth,  in  a  race  rescued  from 
bondage,  we  come  now  to  witness  the  setting  up  of  the  fabric, 
to  nolice  the  principle  and  mode  of  organization,  the  institu- 
tions, the  polity,  and  the  workings  of  the  system.     We  must  be 
careful  not  to  confound  the  Hebrew    commonwealth,  as  de- 
scribed in  the  institutions  of  Moses,  and  as  established  by  di- 
vine  wisdom,    with  the  mal- administrations  and  abuses   that 
sprang  up  through  human  infirmity  or  wickedness,  under  them ; 
nor  yet  with  the  arrangements  and  usages  of  the  kingly  dy- 
nasties by  which  the  Hebrew  commonwealth  was,  after  a  time, 
subverted,  and  the  Mosaic  economy,  to  a  great  extent,  superse- 
ded, encroached  upon,  disarranged,  or  reduced  to  a  dead  let- 
ter.    And  in  analyzing  the  Mosaic  economy  we  must  distin- 
guish, carefully,  between  the  essential  and  the  incidental,  the 
fundamental  and  the  circumstantial,  the    permanent  and  the 
temporary,  the  universal  and  the  peculiar ;— between  the  prin- 
ciple, and  the  particular  form  it  may  assume. 

The  Mosaic  economy,  in  one  of  its  aspects,  was  an  instj-u- 
mcntality,  to  be  employed  only  for  a  season,  and  then  laid 
a^^idc.  It  was  a  scaffolding  to  be  used  in  the  erection  <.)f  an 
inner  and  more  permanent  temple,  to  be  taken  down  when  that 


^0  DEMOCKACY  OF  CIlKISTIAiNlTV. 

temple  should  have  been  reared.    It  was  a  winter  house  for  deli- 
cate plants,  to  be  removed  on  the  opening  of  the  spring.    It  was 
one  of  a  series  of  steps  in  a  flight  of  stairs,  leading  upwlrd,  over 
which  mankind  were  to^pass,  in  ascending  to  their  original  and 
long  lost  level.    It  was  a  system  of  types,  sjmbols,  hieroglyph- 
ics,  and  pictures,  for  the  use  of  those  who  had  not  yet  learned 
letters.     These  purposes  accomphshed,  its  mission  in  these  par- 
ticulars was  fulfilled.     In  the  transient  of  that  economy  was 
included,  moreover,  whatevei  of  local  or  chronological   pecu- 
liarity might  mark  that  region  or  period  demanding    a   cor- 
responding conformation  of  polity.' 

But  all  this  impHes  that  there  was  a  principle  lying  at  the 
bottom  of  these  arrangements  as  a  whole,  and  shadowed  forth 
or  indicated  by  them,  as  permanent  as  the  objects  they  were  de- 
signed to  subserve,  and  partaking  of  the  same  character. 
This  principle  could  not  fail  to  manifest  itself;  otherwise  the  in- 
tended lesson  could  not  thus  have  been  taught,  and  there  would 
have  been  no  correspondency  between  between  the  instrumen- 
tality and  the  object. 

The  institutions  of  Moses  are  doubtless  to  be  expounded  and 
understood  in  the  light  of  the  principles  and  objects  known  to 
have  entered  vitally  into  the  establishment  of  them.   Whatever 
may  appear  to  be  anomalous  will  be  hkely  to  be  found  in  the 
category  of  the  incidental,  the   circumstantial,  the  temporar}^ 
the  peculiar.     And  by  the  same  rule  whatever,  in  the  light  of 
the  New  aVstament  dispensation,  is  known  to  have  been  "^ibro- 
gated,  is  thereby  ascertained  to  have  belonged  to  the  circum- 
stantial and  peculiar,  and  is  not  to  be  taken  into  the  categoryof 
the  arrangements  that  were  designed  to  be  permanent  oi^adap- 
ted  to  universal  imitation.     These  obvious  rules,  if  applied,  will 
enable  us,  if  we  mistake  not,  to  dispose  readily  and  happily  of 
whatever  in  the  Mosaic  arrangements  mayappear,  at  first  sight, 
to  conflict  with  the  principle  of  democracy,  so    conspicuous''  in 
the.incipient  measures  leading  to  the   erection  of  the  Hebrew 
Commonwealth. 

"DIVINE  KlGilT  OF  KINGS?" 

Moses  was  specially  and  miraculously  designed  and  commis- 


nEMOCRArV    OF  r-HRTSTIAXITY.  81 

sioned  by  God,  to  act  as  the  chief  magistrate  of  the  He- 
brews, but  he  must  needs  present  to  the  people  the  appro- 
priate evidences  of  the  fact,  before  their  obedience  could, 
on  any  such  grounds,  be  demanded.  This  was  well  un- 
derstood by  Moses,  as  appears  from^what  he  said  to  God 
on  receiving  his  commission,  and  from  the  direction 
which  God  accordingly  gave  him  to  work  special  mira- 
cles in  their  presence,  for  that  end.  (See  Ex.  iv.  1-9.)  To- 
wards the  close  of  the  same  chapter  we  have  an  account 
of  the  appointed  interview  between  Moses  and  the  people, 
who  were  convened  for  that  special  purpose,  Aaron,  by 
divine  appointment,  acting  on  his  behalf,  on  that  occasion, 
Moses  having  modestly  begged  to  be  excused  from  thus 
urging  his  own  claim  to  authority  over  them. 

"  And  Aaron  spake  all  the  words  which  the  Lord  had 
spoken  unto  Moses,  [rehearsing  the  divine  commission] 
and  did  the  signs  in  the  sight  of  the  people.  And  the 
people  believed,  and  when  they  heard  that  the  Lord  had 
visited  the  children  of  Israel,  and  that  he  had  looked  upon 
their  affliction,  then  they  bov/ed  their  heads  and  worship- 
ped."—^^  30-31. 

This  was  equivalent  to  their  own  free  choice  of  jMoses 
as  their  chief  magistrate,  and  would  have  been  so  regard- 
ed in  any  thorough  democracy  under  heaven.  All  this 
was  in  Egypt,  before  Moses  laid  any  commands  upon  the 
Hebrews,  or  undertook  to  transact  any  business  on  their 
behalf,  at  the  court  of  Pharaoh.  Though  his  authority, 
in  this  case,  was  direct  from  God,  and  though  the  knowl- 
edge of  that  fact  had  been  miraculously  communicated  to 
him,  yet,  by  God's  own  direction,  as  it  would  seem,  the 
voluntary  concurrence  of  the  people  was  thus  to  be  se- 
cured : — this  was  a  part  of  the  divine  plan  of  operation, 
not  that  their  consent  was  necessary  (in  a  case  where  the 
good  pleasure  of  God  had  been  thus  signified)  to  the  com- 
pleteness of  the  authority,  but  because,  perhaps,  God 
would  not  thus  interpose  for  their  deliverance  without 
their  free  co-operation,   (and  they  were  not  forced   out  of 


82  DEMOCRACY  OF  CimiSTIANITV. 

Egypt)  nnd  because,  perhaps,  God  would,  from  the  be- 
ginr.ino:,  ticcustom  them  to  the  choice  of  their  own  rulers. 
When  those  who  claim  a  divine  right  to  rule  over  their 
brethren  will  produce  the  credentials  that  Moses  did, 
when,  instead  of  enforcing  their  claims  by  fire  and  sword, 
they  will  imitate  the  meekness  of  Moses,  leave  it  for  oth- 
ers to  urge  peacefully  their  claims,  and  then  wait  for  the 
expressed  "belief"  and  grateful  recognition  of  their 
brethren,  before  they  issue  their  edicts,  then  it  will  be  in 
time  for  them  to  refer  to  Moses  as  a  precedent  for  "the 
divine  right  of  kings."  ^ntil  then,  there  will  be  no  per- 
tinency in  the  citation  of  the  precedent.  And  it  may  not 
be  greatly  out  of  place  to  add,  here,  that  the  story  of  Mo- 
ses and  the  triumphant  Hebrews,  furnishes  no  precedent 
for  bloody  revolutions  to  establish  national  freedom.  Not 
a  sword  was  drawn  by  them  against  the  Egyptians,  and 
the  conquest  of  Canaan  ^by  direct  and  specific  command 
for  that  purpose,  is  rather  a  denial  than  a  confirmation  of 
the  right  to  engage  in  su^h  an  enterprise  without  such  a 
command. 

CHOICE  OF  OFFICERS  BY  THE  PEOPLE THEIR  QUALIFICATIONS. 

The  first  record  of  the  appointment  of  civil  ofHcers 
under  Moses,  is  found  in  Exodus,  Chapter  xvili.  Jeth- 
ro,  the  father-in-law  of  Moses,  had  remonstrated  with 
him  for  wearing  out  his  life  in  the  decision  of  petty 
controversies  among  the  people.  He  advised  the  appoint- 
ment of  ofHceis  or  judges  to  decide  ordinary  causes,  re- 
serving only  the  more  difficult  for  the  hearing  of  Moses, 
who  should  also  instruct  them  in  the  ordinances  and  laws 
wherein  they  should  walk.     He  said  : 

"  Thou  shalt  provide  out  of  all  the  people  able  men,  such 
as  fear  God,  men  of  truth,  hating  covetousness,  and  place 
such  over  them,  to  be  rulers  of  thousands,  rulers  of  hun- 
dreds, rulers  of  fifties,  and  rulers  of  tens.  If  thou  shalt  do 
this  thing  as  God  commanded  thee  so,  then  thou  shalt  be 
able  to  endure,  and  all  this  people  shall  also  go  to  their 
place  in  peace." 


DEMOCRAOY  OF  CHRISTIANITY.  83 

As  Jethro  advised  this  measure  on  condition  that  God 
should  so  direct,  we  may  be  assured  that  Moses  obtained 
divine  direction  in  this  matter,  as  he  did  afterwards  in 
the  appointment  of  the  seventy  elders.  (Numbers  xi.  14, 
16.)  The  qualifications  of  rulers  here  insisted  onfurnish 
a  key  to  the  work  to  be  performed.  It  was  the  execution 
of  justice  between  man  and  man.  It  needed  a  sound  mind 
and  high  moral  qualities.  The  subtleties  of  modern  juris- 
prudence, the  arts  of  so  called  political  economy,  as  now 
commonly  understood,  would  not  be  needed,  and  were  not 
to  be  provided  for. 

"  So  Moses  cliose  able  men  out  of  all  Israel,  and  made 
them  heads  over  the  people,  rulers  of  thousands,  rulers  of 
hundreds,  rulers  of  fifties,  and  rulers  of  tens.  And  they 
judged  the  people  at  all  seasons,  the  hard  causes  they 
brought  unto  Moses,  but  every  small  matter  they  judged 
themselves." — v.  2G,  27. 

Here,  perhaps,  it  wiil  be  thought  that  Moses  made  these 
appointments  without  the  voice  of  the  people.  But  upon 
examination  this  will  appear  to  be  as  unfounded  as  the 
notion  that  Timothy  and  Titus  ordained  Christian  elders 
or  bishops  without  the  election  of  the  common  brother- 
hood. In  the  first  chapter  of  Deuteronomy,  Moses  rehear- 
ses over  again  the  same  story,  w^th  additional  particulars. 
In  the  former  account  the  advice  of  his  father-in-law  had 
been  mentioned.  But  here  it  is  further  stated  that  Moses 
laid  the  matter  before  the  people,  and  said  : 

"  How  can  I  myself  alone  bear  your  cumbrance,  and 
your  burden,  and  your  strife.  Take  ye  wise  men,  and  un- 
derstanding, and  known  among  yonr  tribes,  and  I  will 
make  them  rulers  over  you.  And  ye  answered  me  and 
said,  The  thing  which  thou  hast  spoken  is  good  for  us  to 
do.''—?;.  12-14. 

He  then  repeats  the  statement  of  his  appointing  the  offi- 
cers and  giving  them  a  charge  to  judge  righteously  the 
causes  that  should  come  before  them. 


84  DEMOCRACY  OF  CIIR  ISTM  XITV. 


CHAPTER  VII. 

KLEMENTS  OF  THE  COMMONWEALTH. GENERAL    SUFFRAGE  THE 

JUDICIARY. 

From  the  preceding  account  it  appears  that  the  people' 
were  recognized  as  constituting  the  state — the  eJements 
of  the  commonwealth.  Divinely  appointed  as  was  Moses, 
with  the  cloudy  fiery  pillar  by  night  and  by  day  for  his 
ensign,  and  receiving  frequent  if  not  daily  communica- 
tions and  directions  immediately  and  miraculously  from 
God,  he  would  do  nothing  in  so  important  a  matter  as  the 
establishment  of  a  judiciary  system  without  the  concur- 
rence of  the  people.  And,  not  to  a  few  select  delegates, 
but,  as  it  would  seem,  to  the  vast  assembly  of  the  people, 
en  masse,  would  he  propound  the  matter,  and  receive  their 
answer.  0?i  them  too,  did  he  put  the  task  of  making  the 
selection  from  among  themselves,  of  suitable  persons 
whom  he  might  commision,  and  instruct  in  the  duties  of 
their  office. 

And  thus  the  foundation  stone  of  the  Hebrew  common- 
wealth was  Wid,  first,  in  the  institution  of  a  regular  judi- 
ciary, by  the  people,  so  minute  in  its  subdivisions  that 
every  ten  citizens  had  the  election  of  their  magistrate,  to 
determine  causes  without  needlessly  going  farther,  thence 
extending  upwards  to  judges  of  fifties,  of  hundreds,  and 
thousands.  Second,  in  the  actual  choice  of  these  officers 
by  the  people, 

Chronologically,  as  well  as  in  the  nature  of  things,  this 
was  the  first  step  taken  in  the  regular  organization  of  a 
civil  government  for  the  Hebrews,  and  it  was  done  hy 
themselves,  on  the  recommendation  of  Jethro  and  Moses 
and  with  the  approbation  and  direction  of  God.  This  was 
before  the  giving  of  the  law  at  Mount  Sinai,  andthejudges 
could  have  had  no  legislation  to  guide  them^  but  only  the 
"common  law"  to  "judge  righteously,"    as  repeated   in 


DEMOGKACY   OF  CHKiaXlAMlV.  85 

the  charge  of  Moses.  This  arrangement  was  in  strict 
harmony  with  the  divine  charter  of  civil  government  to 
"  Noah  and  his  sons,"  which  Moses  as  the  divinely  inspired 
penman  of  that  history  must  have  understood. 

And  after  the  giving  of  the  law  at  Mount  Sinai,  Moses 
repeats  in  substance  the  arrangement  above  described, 
among  '•  the  statutes  and  judgments  which  [says  he,  Deut. 
Chap.  xii.  1,]  ye  shall  observe  and  do,  in  the  land  which 
the  Lord  God  of  thy  fathers  giveth  thee  to  possess  it,  all 
the  day s  that  ye  live  upon  the  earth."  These  are  his  words  : 

"Judges  and  officers  shalt  thou  make  thee  in  all  thy 
gates  which  the  Lord  thy  God  giveth  thee,  throughout 
thy  tribes,  and.  they  shall  judge  the  people  with  just  judg- 
ment.''— Dciit.  xvi.  18. 

Here,  then,  we  have  the  basis  of  a  permanent  judiciary 
system  for  the  Hebrew  commonwealth,  as  established  by 
the  code  of  Moses.  It  provides  for  a  judge  in  every  town, 
village,  or  city.  The  "  gates  "  at  the  entrance  of  the  sev- 
eral towns  were  places  of  public  resort,  where  the  public 
business  was  transactod.  There  their  judicial  proceedings 
were  to  be  held,  each  locality  furnishing  its  own  judge 
elected  directly  by  the  people. 

The  organization  and  powers  of  the  New  England  town- 
ships, originating  in  the  strict  church  independency  and 
corresponding  political  activities  of  the  early  puritans,  has 
justly  been  celebrated  by  De  Tocqueville  and  other  saga- 
cious writers,  as  the  germe,  the  chief  safe-guard  and  most 
perfect  exemplification  of  "Democracy  in  Americaj  "  but 
it  falls  short,  in  some  particulars,  of  coming  up  to  the  sim- 
ple democracy  of  the  Hebrew  localities,  where  the  people 
chose  all  their  judges  or  magistrates  without  any  appoint 
ing  power  in  a  higher  legislative  body  at  a  distance.*  The 
minute  subdivision  into  hundreds,  fifties,  and  tens  must 
have  distributed  the  judiciary  power  among  the  mass  of 
the  people,  beyond  and  other  known  precedent. 

*^  i^erh-iiiS  the  NtHv  York  to-.vnships  uniler  tiie  new  ;j::i(f  consLituliun, 
approximate  nearly  to  the  Hebrew  modd,  though  lo)  m.jch  busine«  * 
still  monopolized  by  lUc  county  towns. 


5 


86  DEMOCRACY  OF  OHRISTIAxMTY. 

By  its  workings,  as  naturally  conceived,  a  controversy  between 
two  citizens  both  belonging  to  the  same  band  of  ten,  would  come 
before  the  ruler  or  magistrate  of  that  ten.  If  the  litigants  be- 
longed to  two  contiguous  bands  of  ten,  their  cause  would  go 
before  their  judge  of  fifty — if  to  two  contiguous  fifties,  it  would 
go  before  the  judge  of  their  hundred — if  to  two  contiguous 
hundreds,  it  would  go  before  the  judge  of  their  thousand.  In 
this  way  most  controversies  would  be  decided  at  the  very  doors 
of  the  litigants,  without  needless  journeyings,  and  with  little  or 
no  expense ;  the  offices  thus  divided  among  the  people  precluding 
the  idea  of  their  yielding  pecuniary  profit,  the  great  source  of 
judiciary  corruption.  Professional  lawyers,  salaried  judges,  and 
court  fees,  among  the  Hebrews,  if  they  retained  the  system  of 
Jethro,  must  have  been  phrases  almost  or  quite  unknown.  Pro- 
ficients in  the  modern  science  of  jurisprudence  may  smile  at 
the  idea  of  the  workings  of  such  a  system.  We  do  not  say  that 
it  is  obligatory  on  every  or  on  any  community  to  to  trj^  the 
experiment  of  its  precise  and  literal  repetition  in  the  present  age  of 
the  world;  but  we  do  say  that  the  precedent  is  sufficiently  sacred 
and  venerable  to  protect  it  from  Christian  ridicule,  that  the 
principle  involved  is  deserving  of  reverent  regard,  and  the 
practice  of  that  principle  in  some  form  more  perfect  and  simple 
than  any  now  in  use,  would  probably  result  in  the  rectification 
of  many  abuses  novv^  felt,  but  almost  despairingly  endured. 

Before  dismissing  this  part  of  the  record  we  can  not  forbear 
to  remark  upon  the  circumstances  in  which  this  universal  suf- 
frage and  almost  general  participancy  in  the  magistracy  were 
introduced.  A  people  degraded  by  centuries  of  bondage  and 
but  recently  escaped — a  people  not  thoroughly  cured  of  the 
idolatries  of  heathenism  and  the  impurities  of  poligamy — a  people 
of  whom  their  inspired  legislator  and  historian  testifies  that  they 
were  a  stiff-necked  and  rebellious  people,  impatient  of  salutary  re- 
straints— a  people  by  no  means  proficients  in  literature  and 
science — a  people  whose  habits,  whose  residence,  whose  avoca- 
tions, whose  institutions,  civil  and  ecclesiastical,  were  {at  the 
beginning  of  this  experiment)  in  an  unformed  and  unsettled 
state — such  a  people,  according  to  the  common  modes  of  think- 


DEMOCRACY  OF  CHRISTIANITY.  87 

ing,  would  be  in  rather  an  unpromising  condition  for  so  radical 
and  hazardous  a  democratic  experiment.    Very  few  even  among 
our  democratic  civilians,  perhaps,  would  venture  to  rec- 
ommend what  was  recommended  by  Jethro,  and  adopted 
by  Moses,  under  the  divine  direction.     We  are  not  author- 
ized by  the  record  to  say  that  it  worked  as  well  as  could 
have  been  desired.     Yet  the  Divine  Wisdom  that  guided 
the  progress  of  that   people,  appears  to  have  sanctioned 
and  commanded  the  experiment.     Instead  of  interposing 
a  veto  upon  it,  as  though  the  people  must  be  further  pre- 
pared, before  they  could   be  entrusted  with  such  respon- 
sibilities, the  divine  economy  seems  to  have  been  to  throw 
the  responsibilities  upon  them,  in  the  first  place,  that  in 
the  effort  for  meeting  them  they  might  gradually  become 
better  qualified.     It  was  evidently   an   important  step  in 
the  course  of  their  moral  and  political  training,  that  could 
not  well  be  spared.     The  civil  code  promulgated  at  Sinai 
was  soon  after  committed  to  the  people,  as  thus  organized 
and  acting,  for  theii'  administration,    and  thus  they  were 
taught  "  the  statutes  and  the  judgments"  of  the  Lord  God 
of  their  fathers,  who  had  delivered  them  from  bondage. 
A  portion  of  the  Book  of  Deuteronomy  is  occupied  by  Mo- 
ses with  directions  to  the  people.,  \\o\v  \o  administer  as  well 
how  to  ohey  this  law,  thus  placing  them  at  once  in  the  two- 
fold position  of   rulers   and   subjects.     This  paradox  of 
democracy,  so  enigmatical  to   many  philosophers  even  of 
modern  times,  the  ancient  Hebrews  were  put  in  process 
of  solving,  at  an  early  period  of  their  history,  as  the  first 
authoritative  promulgation  of  their   code   at  JSinai  found 
them  organized  in  thousands,  hundreds,  fifties,  and  tens, 
for  the  administration  of  it,  and  already  becoming  accus- 
tomed to  conduct  judicial  proceedings. 

COURT    OF    THE    CONGREGATION. 

But  we  have  not  yet  fully  exhibited  the  extent  to  which 
the  democratic  principle  was  carried,  in  the  organization 
and  workings  of  the  Hebrew  judiciary.  Thus  far  we  have 
been  looking  only  at  the  courts  for  trying  civil  causes  and 


88  DEMOORAOY  OF  OHKiaTIANITY. 

ordinary  or  minor  offences.  W^e  come  now  to  look  at  the 
arrangements  made  for  tlie  adjudication  of  cases  involv- 
ino-  the  charge  of  capital  crime,  particularly  murder. 
Here,  it  might  be  supposed  by  some  that  the  jurisdiction 
would  be  carried  further  from  the  mass  of  the  people,  who 
would  be  liable  to  be  swayed  by  undue  agitation  and  ex- 
citement ;  and  that  therefore  the  decision  should  be  com- 
mitted to  profound  jurists,  or  at  least  to  a  select  few. 
The  trial  by  jury,  in  our  times,  has  justly  been  regarded 
a  bold  advance  in  the  practice  of  the  democratic  theory, 
of  no  small  importance  and  value.  But  it  is  only  a  lame 
approximation  towards  the  democracy  of  the  Hebrews. 
What  would  be  said  of  the  novel  scene,  even  in  democratic 
New  England.  New  York,  and  other  American  states,  if 
trials  for  murder  should  be  conducted  by  all  the  citizens 
of  the  townships,  in  open  town  meetings  convened  for  the 
purpose,  each  township  taking  cognizance  of  the  capital 
crimes  committed  within  its  own  limits  1  How  many 
of  the  readers  of  the  Bible  are  aware  that  something  like 
this  was  Jehovah's  express  appointment,  by  Moses,  for 
the  children  of  Israel,  when  they  should  have  come  into 
possession  of  their  promised  inheritance  1  A  perusal  of 
the  thirty-fifth  chapter  of  the  Book  of  Numbers  may  tell 
us  whether  this  were  so. 

"  And  the  Lord  spake  unto  Moses,  saying,  Speak  unto 
the  children  of  Israel,  and  say  unto  them,  when  ye  be 
come  over  Jordan  into  the  land  of  Canaan,  then  shall  ye 
appoint  you  cities  to  be  cities  of  refuge  for  you,  that  the 
slayer  may  flee  thither,  which  killeth  any  person  at  una- 
wares. And  they  shall  be  unto  you  for  cities  of  refuge 
from  the  avenger,  that  the  man  slayer  die  not,  until  he 
stand  before  the  congregation  in  judgment." — v.  9-12. 

After  designating  the  number  and  location  of  the  cities 
of  refuge,  directions  are  given  to  the  jyeople  for  determin- 
ing whether  the  accused  be  guiltj?-  of  wilful  murder  or  no, 
and  if  adjudged  guilty,  "  the  murderer  shall  surely  be  put 
to  death  :"  but  if  "  he  was  not  his  enemy,  neither  sought 
his  harm,  then  the  congregation  shall  judge  between 


DEMOCRACY  OF  CHRISTIANITY.  89 

the  sla)  er  and  the  revenger  of  blood,  according  to  these 
judgments  ;  and  the  congregation  shall  deliver  the  slay- 
er out  of  the  hand  of  the  revenger  of  blood,  and  restore 
him  to  the  city  of  his  refuge,  whither  he  was  fled,"  &c. — 
V.  24.,  25. 

In  the  20th  chapter  of  the  Book  of  Joshua  it  is  record- 
ed that  "  the  Lord  also  spake  unto  Joshua,"  repeating  the 
same  directions,  in  nearly  the  same  language,  in  respect 
to  the  cities  of  refuge,  and  commanding  that  the  slayer 
should  "  sta?id  before  the  congregation  for  judgment" 
(v.  6,)  and  then  the  history  proceeds  to  name  the  cities 
that  "  they^^  (i.  e.  the  "  Children  of  Israel,"  who  were  di- 
rected to  make  the  selection,)  "  appointed"  for  that  pur- 
purpose,  (v.  7,)  "that  whosoever  killeth  any  person  at  un- 
awares might  flee  thither,  and  not  die  by  the  hand  of  the 
avenger  of  blood,  until  he  stood  before  the  congrega- 
tion."— V.  9. 

court  of  final  appeal,  or  reference. 
There  was,  however,  a  court  of  final  resort,  in  difficult 
cases,  of  a  less  popular  element. 

"  If  there  arise  a  matter  too  hard  for  thee  in  judgment, 
betw^een  blood  and  blood,  between  plea  and  plea,  between 
stroke  and  stroke,  being  matters  of  controversy  within  thy 
gates,  then  shalt  thou  arise,  and  get  thee  up  into  the  place 
which  the  Lord  thy  God  shall  choose,  and  thou  shalt  come 
unto  the  priests,  the  Levites,  and  unto  the  judge  that 
shall  be  in  those  days,  and  inquire,  and  they  shall  show 
thee  the  sentence  of  judgment  ;  and  thou  shalt  do  accor- 
ding to  the  sentence  which  they  o^  that  place  which  the 
Lord  shall  choose  shall  show  thee  ;  and  thou  shalt  ob- 
serve to  do  all  that  they  inform  thee,"  &c.,  &c. — Deut. 
xvii.  8-10. 

This  decision  was  to  be  final.  The  directions  given  in 
this  passage  are  referred  by  commentators  to  the  case  of 
the  local  "judges,"  whose  appointment  was  directed  in 
in  the  previous  chapter.  If  they  found  it  difficult  to  de- 
cide, they  were  to  refer  the  decision  to  the  court  above 
mentioned.    It  seems  natural,  however,  to  extend  the  ap- 


90  DEMuCKAOY    OF  OIlKlSTlANlXr. 

plication  also  to  the  courts  of  the  congregation,  or  masses 
of  the  people,  mentioned  in  the  35th  chapter  of  Nnmbers. 
Any  of  the  local  courts  of  justice,  however  constituted, 
might  be  in  doubt,  and  in  that  case  they  were  to  apply  to 
this  national  court  of  final  reference.  Whether  a  party 
dissatisfied  with  the  decision  of  one  of  the  lower  courts 
might  in  his  own  name  make  an  appeal  to  this  court,  does 
not  clearly  appear.  Be  this  as  it  may,  the  reason  for  add- 
ing the  priest  to  the  judge,  in  difficult  cases,  is  apparent. 
There  was  no  art  of  printing,  and  the  authorized  copy  of 
•the  written  law  was  kept  under  charge  of  the  high  priest, 
at  the  metropolis  of  the  nation.  The  judge  was  chosen 
by  the  people.  This  cannot  be  said  in  respect  to  the 
priest  J  but,  on  the  other  hand,  it  is  to  be  noticed  that  he 
was  neither  self-appointed  nor  designated  by  any  civil 
ruler  or  legislative  body,  or  so-called  "  government,"  as 
distinguished  from  the  community.  He  held  his  office  by 
appointment  of  God  himself,  as  will  be  shown  in  another 
connexion.  The  appointment  of  judiciary  officers  by  the 
national  executive  or  by  a  legislative  body,  is  an  over- 
sight, in  our  modern  republics,  that  did  not  obtain  favor 
with  the  ancient  Hebrews,  who  were  more  democratic  in 
this  matter  than  we  are. 


CHAPTER  VIIL 

OF   THE    HEBREW    IDEA  OF  LAW  AND  OF    LEGISLATIVE    POWER. 

Whoever  has  studied,  to  any  good  purpose,  the  princi- 
ple of  democracy,  understands  in  some  measure,  the  re- 
lation it  bears  to  the  idea  of  law,  and  to  the  notion  of  le- 
gislative power.  Autocratic  institutions,  of  whatever 
form,  are  based  on  the  idea  that  the  will  of  the  sovereign 


DEMOCRACY  OF  CHRISTIANITY.  91 

power,  whether  of  a  monarch,  or  of  an  oligarchy,  or  of  a 
larger  number,  is  the  basis  of  valid  law.  Produce  the 
ukase,  the  edict,  the  proclamation,  or  the  enactmerit,  duly 
signed,  sealed  and  attested,  and,  with  the  disciple  of  au- 
tocracy, in  its  ordinary  forms,  this  is  the  end  of  all  strife. 
He  knows  no  boundaries  to  the  power  of  civil  government. 
One  thing  as  well  as  another  can  be  enacted  or  proclaim- 
ed into  a  law^  ! 

The  democratic  principle,  on  the  other  hand,  affirms 
that  EQUALITY,  the  same  thing  as  equity,  justice,  is  the 
basis  of  all  valid  law  ;  that  the  essential  equality  of  man 
with  man  requires  that  equality  be  maintained  between 
them  and  that  the  maintenance  of  this  equality  is  law. 

The  democratic  principle,  therefore,  arrays  itself  against 
the  more  widely  prevalent  idea  of  the  nature  and  origin 
of  law,  as  witnessed  in  autocratic  proceedings  and  ar- 
rangements. And  hence  its  struggle  to  limit  the  action 
of  governments  by  bills  of  rights,  constitutional  defini- 
tions, provisions,  and  inhibitions.  So  far  as  these  con- 
form to  equality,  equity,  justice,  so  far  they  are  adapted 
to  guard  the  democratic  principle  from  the  aggressions  of 
lawless  power,  but  no  farther. 

In  our  inquiries,  therefore,  concerning  the  democracy 
or  the  anti-democracy  of  the  Hebrew  commonwealth  as 
instituted  by  God,  through  the  mission  of  Moses,  it  is  of 
vital  importance  to  the  success  of  our  investigations  that 
we  ascertain  with  precision  and  bring  out  into  view,  with 
distinctness,  the  Hebrew  idea  of  law.  and  ot  legislative 
power,  as  embraced  in  the  institutions  of  Moses.  If  w^e 
find  them  to  embody  the  autocratic  idea,  then  we  arrive 
at  the  one  conclusion,  if  the  democratic,  the  another. 
At  the  time  when  Moses  first  stood  before  Pharaoh  demand- 
ing the  liberation  of  the  Hebrews,  the  whole  world,  so  far  as 
we  know,was  completely  under  the  contro!  of  the  autocratic 
notion  of  law.  This  feature  ofthe  ancient  heathenism  was  not 
less  strongly  marked  than  that  of  the  worship  of  false  gods. 
The  two  features  were  indeed  blended  into  one.     Civil  ru- 


^2  l^EMOCRACY  OF  CHRISiTUXITr. 

lers,  kings,  princes,  chieftains,  heroes  were  regarded  as 
"  gods,"  and  their  mandate  was  everywhere  identical  with 
law.  The  idea  of  any  higher  or  other  law  appears  to  have 
been  effectually  displaced,  to  an  extent  and  with  a  result 
of  which  it  maybe  difficult  for  us,  at  present,  to  form  any 
adequate  conception.  But  a  little  reflection  may  help  us 
somewhat  in  this  matter.  If  even  in  this  nineteenth  cen- 
tury of  the  Christian  era,  under  a  republican  form  of  gov- 
ernment, among  zealous  protestants,  with  high  professions 
of  democracy  and  Christianity  on  their  lips,  and  intermin- 
gled with  somewhat  boastful  congratulations  of  the  reign 
of  freedom,  we  hear  it  sometimes  affirmed,  and  more  fre- 
quently implied  or  taken  for  granted  that  paper  laws, 
parchment  charters,  and  legislative  enactments  embody 
an  authority  paramount  to  known  and  admitted  moral 
right,  which  is  the  will  of  God,  what  must  have  been  the 
prevalent  ideas  among  those  ancient  nations  w^ho  had  lost 
the  knowledge  of  the  true  God — who  were  sunk  in  the  most 
debasing  forms  of  idolatry — who  were  everywhere  subject- 
ed to  absolute  despotic  power — and  who  had  not  the  least 
conception  either  of  democratic  institutions  or  of  the  pos- 
sibility of  them,  or  of  the  doctrines  of  human  equality  and 
inalienable  rights  upon  which  they  are  founded  ? 

To  a  great  extent  the  image  worship  of  antiquity  was 
only  the  extended  veneration  of  their  v/arriors  and  despots 
after  they  were  dead,  and  whose  statues  became  objects 
of  idolatrous  regard.  The  images  of  beasts,  birds  and 
reptiles — lions,  eagles,  and  crocodiles — the  emblems  of 
royalty  and  the  ensigns  of  rival  dynasties,  might  very  na- 
turally become  objects  of  worship  in  the  same  manner.* 
So  that  when  we  read  that  God  said  to  Moses,  *'  Against 
all  the  gods  of  Egypt  I  will  execute  judgment,"  (Ex.  xii. 

*  The  Brili-h  li.m,  (he  Americin  rairlc,  in  or.r  own  times,  wiiii  tlie  pic- 
tures a.'.d  iiivigp*^  representing  them,  celebrated  ii^.  patriotic  songs,  and 
personilicd  in  anniversary  orations,  even  under  llie  lijiu  of  the  gi  spel  nnd 
prohibit  ions  of  I  lie  (lecalogue,!)ecome()l>jt>c.tso{'almost  idolalrr>us  regan'.  The 
etaf.ues  of  the  Napoleun,  of  Wellington,  and  of  Washington,  like  the  ima- 
ge's of  saints.  uii?p:re  snuilar  veneration. 


DEMOCRACY    OF    CHRISTIANITY.  93 

12.)  we  may  understand  Him,  with  some  commentators, 
to  mean  the  dumb  idols,  or  with  others  the  despotic  rulers 
of  Egypt,  and  in  either  case  we  shall  not  greatly  mistake. 
The  meaning  must  include  both,  as  the  one  would  involve 
the  other. 

And  how  could  the  miraculous  judgments  upon  Egypt 
pour  contempt  and  disgrace  upon  their  false  gods — the 
dead  ones  or  the  living — and  magnify  the  Jehovah  of  the 
Hebrews  as  the  Supreme  God,  the  Fountain  and  the  Source 
of  Law  over  Egyptians  and  Hebrews,  and  all  the  nations  of 
the  earth,  without  uprooting  at  the  same  time  the  auto- 
cratic notion  of  la  v  as  already  defined  1  Or  how  else 
should  Pharaoh  be  humbled,  or  his  subjects  absolved,  in 
the  decisions  of  their  own  consciences,  from  that  notion 
of  their  necessary  allegiance  to  their  legitimate  monarch, 
interwoven  by  the  abject  submission  of  their  forefathers 
into  every  fibre  of  their  being,  which  notwithstanding  all 
these  wonderful  manifestations  enchained  so  many  thou 
sands  of  them,  as  by  a  spell  of  enchantment,  to  the  cnr  of 
their  infatuated  tyrant,  when  he  entered  into  the  channel 
of  the  Red  Sea  ]  At  his  first  interview  with  Moses,  that 
proud  autocrat  had  demanded,  "  Who  is  Jehovah  that  / 
should  obey  his  voice  to  let  Israel  go  1  /  know  not  Je- 
hovah, neither  will  I  let  Israel  go."*^  He  knew  of  no  author- 
ity superior  to  his  own,  and  his  subjects  knew  of  none  ! 
And  there  v.-as  no  way  in  which  the  authority  of  Jehovah 
over  them  could  be  vindicated  but  by  uprooting  the  every 
where  predominant  autocratic  notion  of  law.  l(  this  idea 
could  be  displaced,  then,  but  not  otherwise,  could  the  au- 
thority of  Jehovah  be  successfully  asserted  and  main- 
tained. 

Doubly,  nay,  vitally  important  were  it,  and  essentially 
necessary  to  the  success  of  the  divine  plan  of  procedure 
in  respect  to  the  Hebrews,  that  the  autocratic  notion  of 
law  should  be  thoroughly  eradicated  from  tkeir  minds,  if 
they  were  to  come  willingly  and  habitualty  under  the  au- 
thority of  Jehovah,  and  if  through  the  medium  and  instru- 

5* 


if4.  DEMOCRACY  OF  CHRISTIANITY. 

mentality  of  that  chosen  people,  all  the  kindreds  of  the 
earth  were  to  be  ultimately  blessed,  (according  to  the  di- 
vine promise  to  Abraham,)  with  the  restored  reign  and 
kingdom  of  Heaven. 

But  assuming,  as  we  well  maj^,  that  the  revealed  will  of 
God,  as  the  basis  of  law  in  opposition  to  the  autocratic 
notion  of  absolute  power,  is  always  a  true  exponent  and 
authoritative  enactment  of  equality,  equity,  justice,'moral 
right,  we  cannot  help  perceiving  that  the  restoration  of 
the  democratic  idea  of  law,  must  have  entered,  of  neces- 
sity, into  the  divine  plan — that,  whether  we  say  God  in- 
tended to  restore  to  the  Hebrews  the  idea  of  His  own  su- 
preme and  exclusive  autority  over  them,  or  whether  we 
say  He  intended  to  restore  to  them  the  democratic  idea 
of  law,  we  only  express,  by  these  different  phrases,  one 
and  the  same  great  fact. 

Theorize  as  we  may,  it  is  evident  from  the  inspired  re- 
cord, that  in  the  process  of  asserting  His  own  supreme 
and  exclusive  authority  over  the  Hebrews,  in  oppo- 
sition to  the  claims  of  all  false  gods,  and  in  making 
the  necessary  or  appropriate  arrangements  for  incorpora- 
ting into  their  civil  polity  the  idea  of  that  supreme  au^ 
thority,  God  did  give  them  the  outlines  of  a  democratic 
commonwealth,  as  far  as  possible  removed  from  all  the 
accustomed  and  appropriate  arrangments  of  absolute  king- 
ly power. 

Had  we  started  with  the  inquiry,  in  the  first  place,  and 
before  stating  the  facts  of  the  history,  what  God  might 
be  expected  to  have  done  for  the  Hebrews,  on  the 
supposition  that  had  He  designed  to  give  them  democratic 
institutions,  deep  sunk  as  they  were  in  their  servile  bon- 
dage, what  course  could  we  have  imagined  for  Him  to  take, 
that  could  have  been  so  skillfully  adapted  or  so  powerfully 
operating  to  produce  such  a  result,  as  the  course  actually 
recorded  in  the  history  "? 

How,  without  the  miraculous  judgments  inflicted  upon 
the  Egyptian  autocrat  and  his  servile  instruments,  could 


DEMOCRACY  OF  CHRISTIANITY.  95 

He  have  broken  the  spell  of  autocratic  ideas  that  consti- 
tuted the  real  though  invisible  chains  of  thsir  bondage! 
How  else  could  the  democratic  idea  have  been  restored  or 
taught  to  them  ?  How  else  could  they  have  been  made  to 
comprehend  the  spirit  of  the  arrangements  afterwards 
made  fbr  their  selection  of  their  own  civil  rulers  1  How 
else  could  they  have  been  made  to  feel  the  responsibilities 
of  civil  government  resting  upon  their  own  shoulders,  m 
all  their  local  congregations,  in  the  democratic  adminis- 
tration of  penal  law  ]  And  how,  without  the  lessons 
taught  them  by  the  plagues  of  Egypt,  and  by  their  own 
incipient  organization  into  a  democratic  commonwealth, 
could  they  have  been  prepared  for  the  scenes  of  Sinai — 
for  the  awful  solemnities  in  the  midst  of  which  the  entire 
Hebrew  nation  were  to  be  charged  by  their  Creator  and 
Deliverer  from  the  yoke  of  despotism,  with  the  adminis- 
tration of  law  J  the  same  law  they  were  required  to  obey, 
the  law  of  equity,  equality,  and  justice,  the  law  of  liber- 
ty, the  law  of  God,  that  thenceforth  and  forever  was  to 
displace  and  annul  all  other  law,  and  especially  the  man- 
dates of  despotic  power,  under  which  they  had  so  long 
groaned  ? 

With  such  a  political  organization  and  with  such  a  law, 
what  would  be  left  for  the  autocratic  principle  to  operate 
with,  or  to  operate  upon,  if  the  people  only  entered  into 
the  spirit  of  their  institutions  and  administered  them  in 
accordance  with  their  design  ;  or  what  work  could  any 
autocratic  usages  or  arrangements  propose  to  accomplish 
among  theml 

And  with  this  view  of  the  Hebrew  idea  of  law,  and  of 
the  institutions  designed  for  its  administration,  how  much 
scope  would  be  left  for  the  exercise  of  legislative  power  1 
Nay,  what  notion  of  such  power  would  the  Hebrews,  if 
fully  imbued  with  the  spirit  of  their  heaven-revealed  law 
and  of  its  appropriate  political  arrangements,  retain  ]  If 
God  himself  had  given  them  a  civil  code,  and  made  all 
the  necessary  provisions  for  the  administrati  on  of  it  by 


^^  DEMOORAOY   OF  CJIinTsTIAXlTy. 

themselves  or  by  judges  of  their  own  choosing,  what  room 
or  necessity  would  there  be  for  any  further  legislation,  or 
who  or  what  body  of  men,  how  constituted,  or  how  com- 
missioned, or  under  what  restrictions  and  limitations, 
should  adventure  upon  such  a  service! 

No  one  will  question  that  if  it  were  possible  to  construct 
a  civil  government,  and  to  provide  for  the  administration 
of  justice,  without  erecting  any  legislative  body  for  the 
enactment  of  statute  law,  and  without  clothing  any  officer 
of  state  with  that  tremendous  function,  the  highest  possi- 
ble point  of  democratic  liberty  would  be  reached,  and  the 
civil  polity  carried  to  the  greatest  possible  remove  from 
any  thing  retaining  the  least  remains  of  the  autocratic 
notion  of  law.  How  many  among  our  modern  champions 
of  the  democratic  principle  have  supposed  that  this  could 
be  done  ?  Or  who  of  those  whose  idea  of  liberty  has  in- 
eluded  the  ideas  of  law  and  of  social  order,  have  attempted 
any  thing  of  the  kind,  or  even  hinted  at  the  possibility  of 
such  a  desideratum  1  '    " 

What  if  it  shall  be  found  on  examination  that  the  heav- 
en-established  Hebrew  commonwealth,  composed  of  liber- 
ated bondmen,  upwards  of  thirty-three  centuries  aero  or 
nearly  fifteen  centuries  before  the  commencement  of  the 
Christian  era,  was  constructed  on  a  model  very  nearly  ap- 
proximating, at  least,  to  the  idea  of  the  absence  of  any  legis- 
lative power  in  the  hands  of  fallible  men,  if  not  in  fac't  abso- 
lutely  conformed  and  restricted  to  that  ideal 

Moses  has  been  called  the  legislator,  the  lawgiver  of  the 
Hebrews.  But  in  what  sense  is  the  title  appropriate  to 
to  h.m  ?  Were  the  laws  he  promulgated  his  own  enact- 
ments,  on  his  own  authority,  or  at  his  own  discretion^ 
Or  were  they  "the  commandments  of  the  Lord,"  »  bv  the 
hand  of  Moses  r  The  latter  is  the  account  the'.^cripLe! 
give  of  them.  Could  it  be  shown  that  there  are  excen- 
tions,  and  that  faulty  enactments  may  be  found  among 
hem,  then  those  exceptions  and  errors  would  not  belong 
to  the  divinely  established   mstitutio„«  of  which   we  are 


DEMOCRACY  OF  CHRISTIANITY.  97 

speaking,  and  with  which  alone,  (in  this  inquiry  concern- 
ing the  connexion  of  democracy  with  Bible   religion)   we 

have  to  do. 

Whatever  may  have  been  the  legislative  authority  of 
Moses,  he  left  no  successors  in  the  legislative  department 
of  service,  by  lineal  descent  or  otherwise.  "  There  arose 
not  a  prophet  since  in  Israel  whom  the  Lord  knew  face  to 
face."— Dcw^.  xxxiv.  10.  "  The  law  was  given  by  i\loses," 
not  by  Joshua,  who  was  only  commissioned  to  conduct  the 
children  of  Israel  into  their  inheritance,  and  who  was 
strictly  charged  to  "do  according  to  all  the  law  which 
(says  God)  my  servant  Moses  commanded  thee  ;  turn  not 
from  it,  to  the  right  hand  or  to  the  left,  that  thou  mayest 
prosper  whithersoever  thou  goest.  'This  book  of  the  law 
shall  not  depart  out  of  thy  mouth,  but  thou  shalt  meditate 
therein,  day  and  night,  that  thou  mayest  observe  to  do 
all  that  is  written  therein,  for  then  thou  shall  make  thy 
way  prosperous,  and  thou  shalt  have  good  success."— 
Jos /ma  i.  1-8 

The  only  successor  of  Moses  was  Christ,  as  Moses  him- 

self  had  announced. 

"  The  Lord  thy  God  will  raise  up  unto  thee  a  prophet 
from  the  midst  of  thee,  of  thy  brethren,  like  unto  me,  un- 
to him  shall  ye  hearken."  *  *  *  ''  A"^^  '^ 
shall  come  to  pass  that  whosoever  will  not  hearken  unto 
my  words  while  he  shall  speak  in  my  name,  I  will  require 
it  of  him."— i)er^^  xviii.  15-19. 

The  Jews  understood  this  prophet  to  be  their  Messiah, 
and  Peter  affirms  it  to  be  Jesus.     (Acts  iii.  22-23.) 

Thus  definitely  was  the  giving  of  the  law  restricted  to 
Moses,  until  the  coming  of  Christ,  involving,  as  it  would 
seem,  aii  interdict  to  legislation,  in  the  interim  ;  and  ac- 
cordingly Jesus  was  the  first  of  the  Hebrew  prophets  that 
ever  p'^rofessed  or  attempted  to  revise  the  code  given  by 
Moses.     (Matt.  v.  &c.) 

We  meet  with  nothing  in  the  record  of  the  Mosaic  econ- 
omy,  that  could  be  mistaken  for  a  legislative  body,  unless 
it  be   the  council  of  seventy,    in   the  eleventh  chapter  of 


98  DEMOCRACY  OF  CHRISTIANITY. 

Numbers.  A  little  attention  to  the  facts  will  show  whether 
legislation  was  their  mission.  The  people  loathed  the 
manna  God  had  provided  for  them,  and  murmured  for 
flesh.  Moses  heard  their  complainings  and  was  dis- 
pleased.    He  spread  the  case  before  the  Lord,  and  said: 

"  I  am  not  able  to  bear  all  this  people  alone,  because  it 
is  too  heavy  for  me." — v.  14<.  "  And  the  Lord  said  unto 
Moses,  Gather  unto  me  seventy  men  of  the  efders  of  Is- 
rael, whom  thou  knowest  to  be  elders  of  the  people  and 
officers  over  them,  and  bring  them  unto  the  tabernacle  of 
the  congregation,  that  they  may  stand  there  with  thee. 
And  I  will  come  down  and  talk  with  thee,  there  ;  and  I 
will  take  of  the  spirit  that  is  upon  thee,  and  put  it  upon 
them,  and  they  shall  bear  the  burden  of  the  people  with 
thee,  that  thou  bear  it  not  thyself  alone." — v.  16-17. 

*'  And  Moses  went  out  and  told  the  people  the  words  of 
the  Lord,  and  gathered  the  seventy  men  of  the  elders  of 
the  people,  and  set  them  round  about  the  tabernacle. 
And  the  Lord  came  down  in  a  cloud  and  spake  unto  him, 
and  took  of  the  spirit  that  was  upon  him,  and  gave  it  un- 
to the  seventy  elders,  and  it  came  to  pass  that  when  the 
spirit  rested  upon  them  thai  t/iey  2)rop/iesied,  and  did  not 
cease.'' — v.  24-25. 

As  the  case  was  not  one  requiring  additional  legisla- 
tion, and  as  no  legislation  was  had,  or  proposed,  or  con- 
sulted upon,  it  is  manifest  that  the  functions  of  the  sev- 
enty were  not  legislative.  They  prophesied,  that  is,  they 
preached,  admonished,  or  exhorted  the  people  (for  this  ser- 
vice among  the  Hebrews,  was  never  confined  to  the  priest- 
hood,) a  work  altogether  appropriate  to  the  occasion. 
And  it  is  worthy  of  remark  that  the  persons  selected  were 
those  in  whom  the  people  had  expressed  their  confidence 
by  electing  them  to  the  office  of  judges,  though  neither 
judicial  nor  legislative  duties  were,  in  this  case  to  be  dis- 
charged by  them.  This  view,  accords  with  the  comments 
of  Thomas  Scott  on  the  passage,  who  says : 

"It  is  most  probable  that  in  consequence  of  Jethro's 
advice  (Ex.  xviii.  17-23,)  Moses  before  this  had  assist- 
ants in  the  administration  of  justice,  and  in  the  affairs  of 
civil  government,  but  it  had  beea  reserved  to  him  '  to  be 


DEMOCRACY  OF  CRISTIANITY.  99 

for  the  people  to  God-ward.'  In  this  department,  the 
Lord,  on  this  occasion,  appointed  him  co-adjutors,  endued 
with  special  grace  and  wisdom  for  that  service,  whose  as- 
sistance, counsel,  and  authority  he  might  use,  in  allaying 
the  tumults,  quieting  the  minds  or  opposing  the  violence 
of  the  people." 

According  to  this,  their  mission  was  a  "  special"  one, 
for  a  special  occasion,  on  which  they  did  not  act  as  legis- 
lators at  all ;  and  in  the  subsequent  history  of  the  com- 
monwealth, during  the  times  of  Joshua  and  of  the  judges, 
we  meet  with  nothing  like  legislative  action  from  any 
such  council.  We  conclude,  therefore,  that  no  legislative 
body  was  provided  for,  in  the  institutions  of  Moses, 
though,  as  Thomas  Scott  remarks,  "  the  Sanhedrim  or 
council  of  seventy  persons,  in  the  after  ages  of  the  Jewish 
nation,  seems  to  have  been  a  continuation  or  imitation  of 
this  council  assigned  to  Moses."  For  the  acts  or  for  the 
existence  of  the  "  Sanhedrim  in  the  after  ages,"  the  then 
subverted  and  rejected  institutions  of  the  Hebrew  com- 
monwealth are  not  to  be  held  responsible.  If  it  be  true 
that  they  added  to  the  Mosaic  code  or  diminished  from  it, 
the  fact  probably  belongs  to  the  category  of  those  "  tra- 
ditions of  the  elders"  through  which,  as  Christ  tells  his 
countrymen,  the  commandments  of  God  had  been  made 
of  none  effect  ;  a  sufficient  rebuke,  one  would  think,  of 
any  Hebrew  legislation,  during  the  period  extending  from 
Moses  to  Jesus,  being  about  fourteen  hundred  and  fifty 
years.  Thus  we  have  Christ's  own  comment,  after  tlie 
lapse  of  so  many  ages,  upon  the  particular  feature  of  the 
Hebrew  polity,  now  under  review,  namel}^,  its  idea  of  law 
and  of  legislative  power.  An  examination  of  Mark  vii. 
1-13  will  show  that  the  case  adduced  by  the  Savior  in- 
volved a  question  of  civil  law^  and  his  charge  against  the 
elders  was  that  the  original  enactment  had  been  displaced 
or  set  aside  by  their  virtual  assumption  of  legislative  pow- 
er, which  did  not  belong  to  them. 


100  DEMOCRACY  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

CHAPTER  IX. 

FURTHER     VIEW    OF     THE     MOSAIC      CODE — ITS     RELATION    TO 


The  brevity  and  apparent  paucity  of  the  Hebrew  stat- 
utes are  very  remarkable,  and  the  more  so,  in  the  absence 
of  any  provisions  for  additional  legislation.  In  the  eye  of 
modern  statesmanship  and  jurisprudence,  this  would  seem 
a  capital  defect ;  and  it  would  be,  if  the  modern  idea  of 
statesmanship  were  to  be  provided  for,  and  the  modern 
science  of  jurisprudense,  so  called,  encouraged. 

The  sublime  yet  simple  idea  of  civil  government,  as 
embodied  in  the  statute  book  of  Moses,  is  in  no  way  more 
clearly  revealed  or  more  forcibly  impressed  than  in  its 
siafnificant  brevity,  its  comprehensive  paucity,  its  eloquent 
silence.  What  God  designs  civil  government  to  be,  will 
be  readily  understood,  when  mankind  can  only  read,  in 
the  instructive  blanks  of  the  divine  charters,  to  Noah  and 
his  sons  and  to  Moses,  what  he  does  ?io/{  design  it  to  be.  The 
modern  phases  of  autocracy,  not  less  than  the  ancient,  re- 
quire that  those  blanks  be  profoundly  studied.  If  learned 
political  economists— if  subtle  and  accomplished  jurists,  do 
not  find  in  Moses  what  they  are  looking  after,  let  them 
first,  imagine  themselves  in  the  place  of  the  people,  and 
ask  whether  what  they  were  looking  after  cannot  be 
spared  ;  let  them  then  look  into  the  record  again,  and  see 
what  they  do  find,  and  ponder  its  value.  The  true  idea 
of  civil  government,  divested  of  the  lumber  of  ages,  may 
perhaps,  for  the  first  time,  be  revealed  to  them,  in  a  more 
simple  democracy  than  now  exists  on  the  earth. 

The  examination  proposed  will  require  that  whatever 
in  the  record  pertaining  manifestly  to  the  peculiarities  of 
the  Old  Dispensation,  its  symbols,  its  enigmatical  rituals, 
its  typical  sacrifices  and  priesthood,  its  ecclesiastical  law 
intermingled  with  the  civil,  be  left  out  of  the  account,  as 


DEMOCRACY  OF  CIiniSTIANITV.  101 

-^npt  appropriate  to  the  arrangements  of  any  other  nation 
Pthan  the  Hebrews,  and  previous  to  the  introduction  of  the 
New  Covenant,  by  which  all  those  special  arrangements, 
even  among  them,  were  displaced.  This  process  will 
still  further  reduce  the  bulk  of  the  code  to  be  considered, 
and  bring  within  a  very  narrow  compass  the  law  book  of 
Moses. 

Thus  described,  it  becomes  what  may  well  be  called  a 
condensed  compendium  of  universal  common  law,  with 
just  enough  of  statutory  enactment  to  illustrate  its  bear- 
ings and  applications  in  a  few  leading  directions,  togeth- 
er with  simple  rules  of  evidence  and  modes  of  judicial 
proceedings,  in  a  form  and  phraseology  level  to  the  mean- 
est capacity,  and  commending  itself  to  the  conscience  and 
common  sense  of  the  attentive  reader. 

The  foundation  of  the  whole  will  be  found  in  the  deca- 
logue, which,after  having  asserted  the  claims  of  Jehovah, 
proceeds,  by  the  same  high  authority,  to  protect  human 
rights. 

''And  God  spake  all  these  words,  saying,  1  am  Jeho- 
vah thy  God,  w^hich  have  brought  thee  out  of  the  land  of 
Egypt  and  out  of  the  house  of  bondage.  Thou  shalt  have 
no  other  gods  before  me.  Thou  shalt  not  make  unto  thee 
any  graven  images,"  &c. 

As  their  Deliverer  from  the  yoke  of  despotism,  J  ekovah 
proceeds  to  give  them  the  law  of  freedom,  the  very  first 
specification  of  which  is  such  an  assertion  of  His  own  fa- 
therly supremacy  over  them  as  absolves  them  from  all 
othei'  allegiance,  and  especially  forbids  their  ever  coming 
again  under  the  absolute  sway  either  of  the  living  or  dead 
gods  of  the  heathen.  In  the  next  item  He  prohibits  their 
idolatrous  use  of  the  statues  of  heathen  gods  and  despots, 
or  of  any  of  their  emblems  or  ensigns,  "  in  heaven  above, 
in  the  earth  beneath,  or  in  the  water  under  the  earth." 
Having  instituted  His  own  reverent  worship,  and  provided 
for  them  a  day  of  rest,  He  proceeds,  in  the  second  table  of 
the  law,  to  unfold  the  relations,   rights,   and  social  duties 


102  DEMOCRACY    OF    CIIRISTTANITY. 

of  man.  The  original  familj'^  institution,  the  bond  of  ho- 
\y  universal  human  brotherhood,  is  guarded  by  the  fifth 
commandment  and  the  seventh,  the  right  of  man  to  life  is 
guarantied  in  the  sixth,  his  right  to  property  in  the  eighth, 
his  right  to  truth  and  character  in  the  ninth,  The  inva- 
sion of  all  these  rights  is  guarded  against  m  the  tenth. 
And  thus  the  fundamental  principles  of  human  rights  are 
insisted  upon,  along  with  the  supremacy  and  the  worship 
of  God,  as  essential  parts  of  religion,  and  the  whole  is  en- 
joined in  that  high  spiritual  sense  which  makes  it  take 
cognizance  of  the  heart,  and  prohibit  all  selfish  desires. 
Of  all  this,  the  principle  of  democracy  stands  revealed  as 
an  essential  ingredient. 

It  is  manifest  that  a  code  of  such  a  character,  founded 
on  such  a  basis,  and  reposing  on  such  an  authority,  must 
have  been  adapted  to  present  itself  to  the  Hebrew  mind 
in  striking  contrast  with  the  capricious  decrees  of  the 
Pharaohs,  under  whom  they  had  groaned,  and  conferring 
upon  them  freedom  by  bringing  them  under  the  control  of 
the  essential  law  of  their  being,  a  law  clothed  with  the 
authority  of  God,  not  of  a  sinful  worm  of  the  dust,  like 
themselves,  debased  still  lower  by  his  insane  attempts  to 
be  a  god  over  his  brethren.  In  other  words,  it  was  adap- 
ted to  supplant  the  autocratic  notion  of  law  by  the  idea 
of  the  universal  and  divme  law  of  the  Infinite  Keason, 
the  law  of  the  True  and  of  the  Kight,  "  forever  settled  in 
heaven,"  and  in  the  original  and  changeless  nature  of 
things.  And  this  answers  to  our  highest,  most  compre- 
hensive, and  most  exact  conceptions  of  cojimon  law,  the 
law  of  nature,  the  law  of  God,  paramount  to  all  human 
codes,  and  irrepealable  by  any  act  of  supposed  legislative 
power. 

From  what  other  source,  indeed,  historically  or  phi- 
losophically, can  our  modern  idea  of  Common  Law  (inclu- 
ding under  that  term  whatever  is  deserving  of  the  name) 
be  deduced  or  derived  1      What   nation  io-norant  of  the 

o 

code  of  Moses   including  the  decalogue,  has  ever  made 


DEMOCRACY  OF  CHRISTIANITY.  103 

any  considerable  attainments  in  the  science  of  Common 
Law,  the  now  recognized  basis  of  human  security  and  lib- 
erty— the  grand  bulwark  against  lawless  tyranny  and  au- 
tocratic pretension  1  We  boast  of  ourjinheritance of  Eng- 
lish common  law,  and  find  in  it  the  charter  and  panoply 
of  American  freedom.  But  from  what  source  was  it  de- 
rived 1  How  came  it  to  be  our  heritage,  rather  than  the 
heritage  of  the  heathen  1 

To  prevent  needless  mistake  and  confusion  in  our  inqui- 
ries, we  may  observe,  here,  that  the  law  of  the  decalogue, 
in  some  of  its  aspects,  and  particularly  in  its  high  spirit- 
ual meaning,  as  taking  cognizance  of  human  desire  and 
motive,  transcends  infinitely,  all  the  capacities  of  finite 
man  to  act  judicially  in  its  administration  and  enforce- 
ment. We  cannot,  for  example,  conceive  of  the  possibili- 
ty of  committing  the  tenth  commandment,  "  Thou  shalt 
not  covet" — to  the  care  of  any  human  court  of  judicature, 
for  enforcement,  with  any  prospect  of  success.  The  fifth 
commandment,  "  Honor  thy  father  and  thy  mother" — 
may  be  broken  in  many  ways  which  no  earthly  magistra- 
cy could  reach.  The  laws  against  adultery  and  murder, 
as  expounded  by  our  Savior,  and  as  they  will  be  adminis- 
tered by  our  final  Judge,  may  be  broken  without  furnish- 
ing rational  or  practicable  grounds  for  an  indictment  at 
law,  in  a  human  court.  Human  judges,  who  cannot  look 
directly  into  the  heart,  can  take  cognizance  only  of  out- 
ward acts,  and  not  all  even  of  these  are  of  a  character  to 
come  appropriately  under  the  adjudication  of  fallible  men, 
or  to  be  corrected,  prevented,  or  punished  by  them,  or  in 
the  use  of  any  appliances  within  their  reach.  All  human 
arrangements  for  the  administration  of  justice  rest  ulti- 
mately on  physical  force,  and  it  has  always  been  found  a 
delicate  task  to  settle  with  precision  the  bounds  within 
which  such  penal  sanctions,  administered  by  man  upon 
his  brother  man,  can  be  beneficially,  safely,  or  even  right- 
eously employed.  We  are  compelled  therefore  to  recognize 
a  distinction  between  the  spiritual  and  the  civil  law,  cor- 


^^^  DEMOCRACY    OF    CHRISTIANITY. 

responding  with  the  facts  that  have  now  been  described. 
This  distinction  seems  sufficient,  by  the  bye,  to  correct 
the  mistake  of  those  who  would  make  the  jurisdiction  of 
civil  government  commensurate  with  the  claims  and  the 
law  of  God,  and  who  refuse  therefore  to  recognize  the 
propriety  of  those  limitations  which  would  restrict  it  to 
narrower  bounds  ,•  supposing,  as  they  seem  to  do,  that  be- 
cause  the  civil  magistrate  derives  his  authority  from  God 
that  authority  must  be  as  unlimited  as  the  source  from 
whence  it  is  derived  ;  that  because  the  magistrate's  pow- 
IS  to  be  wielded  in  obedience  to  God,  he  is  therefore  com- 
missioned  to  do  all  that  God  does,  in  the  moral  and  spir- 
itual  government  of  the  world  j  that,  because  he  is  to  ex- 
ecute  justice,  within  the  sphere  of  his  appropriate  action, 
that  sphere  therefore  has  no  limitations! 

This  distinction  may  likewise  help   us  to  conceive  that 
many  things  morally  wrong  and  forbidden  by  God's  spir- 
itual law,  would  not  be  attempted  to  be  repressed  in  that 
part  of  the  code  of  Moses  committed  to  human  jurispru- 
dence and  properly  constituting  civil  law.     The  dulness 
of  their  perceptions,  <'the  hardness  of  their  hearts,"    the 
unskilfulness  with  which  they  would  administer  the  more 
nice  and  delicate  applications  of  the  divine  law  in  its  ori- 
ginal purity,  might   render    it   unsafe  to  put   into  their 
hands,  in  the  form  of  statutory  enactment  for  judicial  ends, 
the  law  that  had  been  true  "  from  the  beginning"   in  re- 
spect to  divorce,  (as  the  Savior  intimatesfand  perhaps  in 
respect  to  polygamy  and  even  domestic  servitude  as  con- 
nected with  it,  in  that  age  of  the  world,  and  in  their  then 
moral  and  intellectual  condition,  especially  if  it  shall   ap- 
pear evident,  on  inquiry,  that  there  was  nothing  absolute- 
ly mvoluntary  in  that  servitude,  and   if  we  admit,  as   an 
exponent  of  the  code  of  Moses,  the  democratic  maxim  that 
civil  law  is  not  for  the  punishment  of  every  thing   that  is 
wicked,  but  mainly  or  solely  (except  as  the  ecclesiastical 
law  may  be  interwoven  into  the  civil— an  anomaly  of  the 
Hebrew  polity  to  be  hereafter  considered)  for  the  protec 


DEMOCRACY  OF    CHKISTIANlXr.  105 

tion  of  human  rights,  or  to  repress  the  aggressions  of  man 
upon  his  brother.  In  this  view,  neither  divorce,  nor  po- 
lygamy, nor  the  domestic  servitude  of  those  times,  can 
claim  any  divine  sanction  on  the  ground  that  they  were 
not  prohibited  in  the  civil  code  of  Moses.  The  moral  law 
in  its  high  spiritual  significancy  and  as  administered  by 
the  Supreme  Lawgiver  remained  in  full  force,  all  that 
time,  and  was  sufficiently  revealed  in  the  spirit  and  foun- 
dation principle  of  the  decalogue,  the  seventh  command- 
ment being  inconsistent  with  divorce,  (except  for  adul- 
tery,) as  well  as  with  polygamy,  and  every  degree  and 
species  of  domestic  injustice  or  inequality  being  prohibit- 
ed by  the  eig-hth.  Among  the  most  earnest  opponents  of 
American  slavery  there  are  some  who  abjure  all  political 
action  against  it  because  they  prefer  the  power  of  persua- 
sive moral  arguments  to  the  arm  of  physical  force.  It  is 
not  foi;,such  to  impugn  the  supposed  lenity  ot  the  Mosaic 
civil  code  in  a  similar  direction,  even  admitting  the  sup- 
position to  be  a  fact,  and  the  cases  to  be  parallel,  as  we 
do  not.  A  single  item  of  that  code  is  sufficient  to  silence 
the  pretence,  from  any  quarter,  that  any  thing  like  human 
chattlehood  was  tolerated  under  it  : 

"He  that  stealeth  a  man  and  selleth  him,  or  if  he  be  found 
in  his  hand,  he  shall  surely  be  put  to  death." — Ex.  xxi.  16. 

With  the  Hebrews,  a  man  unconvicted  of  crime  w  is 
deemed  stolen,  when  taken  and  held  without  his  consent. 
(Gen.  xl.  ]5.)  The  proximity  of  this  item  to  others  regu- 
lating the  condition  of  servants, fixes  negatively  their  mean- 
ing. The  terms  "bought"and  "sold"  in  such  a  connexion  can 
not  include  the  idea  so  emphatically  excluded^  and  we  know 
that  in  later  times  the  same  terms  have  been  used  with  a 
similar  latitude,  implying  nothing  more  than  the  purchase 
and  sale  of  labor  with  the  free  consent  of  the  laborer.  Wives 
as  well  as  servants  were  bought  with  money,  and  fathers 
sold  their  daughters  to  be  both  maid-servants  and  wives  ; 
but  that  circ^imstance  did  not  make  them  slaves.  (Ex. 
xxi.  7-11.)     German  emigrants  have  been  advertised,  and 


106  DEMOCRACY  OF  CHRISTIANITY. 

"  sold  at  auction"  in  our  American  cities — that  is,  their 
time  for  a  limited  period  has  been  sold  to  pay  their  pas- 
sage money — but  this  did  not  enslave  them,  nor  prevent 
some  of  them  from  rising,  in  a  few  years,  to  high  posts  of 
office  and  honor.  The  seventh  year,  with  the  Hebrews, 
was  a  year  of  release  in  which  unliquidated  debts  were 
discharged,  and  servants  were  set  free  unless  they  chose 
to  remain.  (Deut.  xv.)  An  exception  to  this  rule,  some 
suppose  is  found  in  Leviticus  xxv.  in  respect  to  servants 
bought  of  strangers,  but  this  exposition  has  been  ably 
contested.  "Ye  shall  inherit  them  for  a  possession — they 
shall  be  your  bondmen  forever,"  may  indicate  the  perpe- 
tuity of  the  statute,  rather  than  the  duration  of  the  ser- 
vice. The  marginal  reading  is,  "ye  shall  serve  yourselves 
with  them."  One  other  statute  sufficiently  explicit  seems 
to  preclude  the  possibility  of  involuntary  servitude  under 
the  institutions  of  Moses:  * 

"  Thou  shalt  not  deliver  unto  his  master,  the  servant 
that  hath  escaped  from  his  master  unto  thee  ;  he  shall 
dwell  with  thee,  even  among  you,  in  that  place  which  he 
shall  choose  in  one  of  thy  gates,  where  it  liketh  him  best^ 
thou  shalt  not  oppress  him." — Deut.  xxxiii.  15,  16. 

What  system  of  involuntary  servitude  could  survive  a 
statute  like  this  1  That  involuntary  servitude  di  1  take 
place  in  some  periods  of  the  Hebrew  history  militates  not 
against  our  conclusion.  The  terrible  rebukes  of  the  in- 
spired prophets,  on  account  of  such  servitude,  supplies 
us,  on  the  other  hand,  with  the  best  commentary  upon  this 
feature  of  the  code  of  Moses.  (Jer.  xxxiv.  8-17.  Neh.  v. 
1-13.     Isa.  Iviii.  1-11.     Amos  ii.  6.     Joel  iii.  3.) 

We  vindicate,  then,  the  code  of  Moses  not  only  from  the 
charge  of  lending  its  sanction  to  moral  wrong,  but  from  the 
imputation  of  overlooking,  in  the  directions  that  have  been  con- 
sidered, the  proper  functions  of  civil  government.  It  seemed 
requisite  at  some  stage  of  our  inquiries  to  examine  these  alle- 
gations, and  we  were  naturally  drawn  into  the  examination 
here,  in  connexion  with  the  obvious  and  necessary  distinction 


DEMOORAOY  OF  CHRISTIANITY.  107 

between  the  decalogue,  considered  as  a  compendium  of  moral 
and  spiritual  law,  reaching  to  the  innermost  recesses  of  the 
soul,  and  taking  cognizance  of  the  thoughts  and  intents  of  the 
heart,  known  only  to  God — by  Him  alone  to  be  judged ;  and 
that  same  decalogue  as  forming  the  basis  of  an  equitable  and 
divinely  established  civil  code.  On  nothing  short  of  such  a  basis 
could  such  a  code  repose  for  support.  From  nothing  else  could 
it  derive  authority,  or  draw  moral  life.  Remove  the  decaloo-ue, 
and  have  removed  the  underpinning  of  the  civil  code  of  Moses 
— you  have  withdrawn  the  moral  atmosphere  that  gives  vitality 
to  the  structure.  Remove  both  the  decalogue  and  the  code 
and  you  have  removed  the  germe  of  Common  Law. 

From  whence,  we  repeat  and  press  the  inquiry,  is  our  mod- 
ern common  law  derived?  Those  Anglo-Saxon  forefathers  of 
ours,  the  worshippers  of  Woden  and  Thor — deceased  and  dei- 
fied chiefs,  and  deified  because  while  living  their  autocratic  man- 
date was  law — from  what  quarter  di3  tJie  influences  come  that  so 
thoroughly  revolutionized  their  ideas,  or  those  of  their  English  de- 
scendants, as  to  substitute  for  those  heathen  and  servile  notions  the 
sublime  conception  of  Christian  Common  law?  Did  they  originate 
within  themselves,  self-moved  and  without  any  change  in  their 
re/^g^o;^,  the  authoritative  and  lucid  maxims  that  now  adorn  the 
common  law  volumes  of  their  Cokes,  their  Littletons,  their 
Blackstones,  their  Fortescues,  their  Bractons,  their  Hobarts, 
their  Woodses,  their  Noyeses,  their  Jenkses,  and  their  Hales  ? 
Was  it  from  pagan  Rome  with  her  thirty  thousand  gods  and 
deified  autocrats — was  it  from  the  philosophers  of  Greece — was 
it  from  the  Solons  and  Lycurguses  of  antiquity,  (juniors  as 
they  were  of  Moses,  and  possibly  borrowing  a  few^  reflex  rays  of 
light  from  him)  was  it  from  any  of  these,  or  from  either,  or  all 
of  them,  that  our  English  writers  drew  their  ennobling  lore  ? 
Grotius,  Puft'endcorf,  Montesquieu,  Vattel,  and  all  the  kindred 
writers  of  continental  Europe  whose  pages  are,  to  any  extent, 
enriched  with  the  glorious  maxims  of  universal,  life-inspirin  o- 
and  liberty-giving  Common  Law— in  what  market,  from  what 
venders  did  they  "buy  the  truth?" 

It  may  be  said  that  the  truths  of  Common  Law  are  self-evi- 


108  DEMOCRACY  OF  CHRISTIANITY. 

dent,  or  derived  from  the  principles  of  natural  religion.  Grant- 
ed, if  you  please.  But  hoY\'  happens  it  that  self-evident  truths 
and  the  principles  of  natural  religion,  Avith  the  corresponding 
ideas  of  law  and  liberty,  are  no  where  grasped  hold  of,  appre- 
hended, and  retained  by  any  considerable  portion  of  a  commu- 
nity, where  neither  Christianity  nor  the  books  of  Moses  and  the 
prophets  have  shed  any  light  ?  R  ome  and  Greece  had  their 
republics,  as  they  w^ere  called,  long  after  the  promulgation  of 
the  Code  of  Moses  and  the  example  of  the  Hebrew  Common- 
wealth. But  after  all,  what  w^ere  they  ?  What  safeguards  did 
they  provide  for  human  freedom,  for  inalienable  rights,  for  in- 
dividual security  and  orderly  activity  ?  Where  and  what  was 
their  Common  Law  ?  *  Some  may  imagine  that  Moses  only 
gathered  up  the  wisdom  of  those  who  then  lived  or  who  pre- 
ceded him.  The  deep  servility  and  degradation  even  of  Egypt, 
discredits  the  supposition.  ^  But  were  it  so,  the  fact  would  re- 
main that  his  Code  has  been  the  teacher  of  all  subsequent  ages, 
in  the  science  of  liberty  and  law. 

Premisino'  that  we  are  not  to  mistake  for  Common  L:iw  the 
rubbish  that  may  have  crept  into  the  volumes  containing  it,  nor 
the  corrupt  usages  and  precedents  with  which  it  is  sometimes 
confounded,  nor  with  the  error  of  those  who  would  have  the 
magistrate  enforce  tenets  and  forms  of  religion,  because  re- 
ligion lies  at  the  basis  of  law,  let  us  collect  and  place  to- 
gether, side  by  side,  for  convenient  comparison,  some  of  the 
foundation  maxims  of  the  Hebrew  and  the  English  Com- 
mon Law,  and  see  whether  there  be  any  relationship  between 
them. 


*  S.)me  inaxiirts  and  seatimpiits  similar  to  those  of  our  English  Com- 
men  Law  may  in  lee  I  be  tound  in  the  pa.os  of  Cicero  and  i^ome  other 
ancient  pajran  writ-Ts,  but  does  ii  ajT()ear  that  they  were  generally  recocf- 
nizcd  by  thoir  coun'rymen  or  incorp  iratoil  into  their  institutions  and  ju- 
rii^prudi'nce  7  A  few  stronj[  and  cultivated  minds  niii^ht  rise,  intellect- 
ually, above  the  low  gro  md  of  autocracy  and  heathenism,  but  they  lack- 
ed the  divine  auihority  and  co  nniission  of  Moses  to  enforce  the  truths 
which — not  improbably— they  bad  learned  directly  or  indirectly,  from 
him.  But,  be  it  <?o  thai  fhey  wre  tauu^ht  l)y  the  voice  of  nature.  'J'his 
is  the  v.iioe  of  the  sauic  Go  I  who  cuinmissuued  Mosc?  to  enforce  what 
they  were  taught,  thus  conuecting  his  mission  with  the  Gol  of  nature, 
and  both  with  tlic  principles  of  Comtnon  Law  and  Democracy, 


DEMOCRACY    OF    CFTRISTIAXITY. 


109 


HEBREW  COMMON  LAW.        ENGLISH  CO.ALMON  LAW. 


"  Hear  the  causos  between 
rour  brethren  and  judge  righteous- 
ly^ between  every  man  and  his 
brother,  and  the  stran<^er  that  is 
with  him.  Ye  shall  not  respect 
persons  in  judgment,  but  ye  shall 
hear  the  cause  of  the  small  as 
well  as  the  great :  ye  shall  not 
be  afraid  of  the  lace  of  man,  for 
the  judgment  is  God's^ — Deut-  i. 
lG-17.  ' 

"  Shall  the  throne  of  iniquity 
have  fellowship  with  thee,  which 
frameth  mischief  by  a  law  ?" — Ps. 
xciv.  20.  "  Wo  unto  them  that 
decree  unrighteous  decrees  and 
that  v\rite  gricvousness  which  they 
have  prescribed,  to  take  away  the 
right  from  the  poor  of  my  people, 
that  widows  may  be  their  prey,  and 
that  they  may  rob  the  father- 
less."— IsA.  X.  1,  2. 


"  The  law  of  nature,  being  co- 
eval  ivith  mankind  and  dictated  by 
God  himself  is,  of  course,  superior 
in  obligation  to  any  other.  It  is 
binding  over  all  the  globe,  in  all 
countries  and  at  all  times.  No  hu- 
man laws  have  any  validity  if  con- 
trary to  this,  and  such  of  them  as 
are  valid  derive  all  their  force,  me- 
diately or  immediately,  from  this 
original.' '—FoRTEScuE. 

"  The  inferior  must  give  place 
to  the  superior,  man's  laws  to  God's 
laws.  If,  therefore,  any  statute  be 
enacted  contrary  to  these,  it  ought 
to  be  considered  of  no  authority  in 
the  laws  of  England.  "-NoYEs.  "If 
any  human  law  shall  allow  or  re- 
quire us  to  commit  crime,  we  are 
bound  to  transgress  that  human 
law,  or  else  we  must  offend  against 

both   the    natural  and  divine." 

Blackstone." 


"And  they  [the  judges]  shall  "  The  reasonableness  of  law  is 
judge  the  people  with  just  judg-  the  soul  of  law." — Jenks.  "The 
ment." — Deut.  xvi.  IS.  "Oprin-  right  of  the  case  is  the  law  of  the 
ces  of  Israel,  remove  violence  and  case." — Several  Jurists.  "  Stat- 
spoil,  and  execute  judgment  and  utes  against  fundamental  moral- 
justice,  take  away  your  exactions  ity  are  void  " — Judge  McLean, 
from  my  people,  saith  the  Lord."  U.  S.  Sup.  Cot:rt. 
— EzEK.xlv.  9. 


"  Thou  shalt  not  follow  a  multi-        "  When  an  act  of  parliament  is 

tude  to  do  evil,  neither  shalt  thou  against  common  right  or  reason 

speak  inacanse  to  decline  after  ma-  or  repugnant  or  impossible  to  be 

ny  to  wrest  judgment  "-Ex.  xxiii.  performed,  the  common  law   will 

'"     "  That  which  is  altogether  just  control  it,  and  adjudge  such  act  to 

Itthou  fo'llow."-DEUT.xvi.2n.  be  void." — Coke. 


2 
shalt 


"  Execute  judgment  between  a 
man  and  his  neighbor." — Jer.  vii. 
5.  "  Since  the  day  that  your  fath- 
ers came  forth  out  of  the  land  of 
Egypt  unto  this  day,  I  have  even 
sent  unto  you  all  my  servants,  the 
prophets,  daily  rising  up  early  and 
sending  them,  yet  they  hearkened 
not  unto  me." — I  b.  2o,  26.  "  Even 
from  the  days  of  your  fathers  ye 
have  gone  away  from  mine  ordin- 
ances and  have  not  kept  them." — 


"  If  it  be  found  that  a  former 
decision  (respecting  a  point  in 
common  law)  is  manifestly  ab- 
surd and  unjust,  it  is  declared,  not 
that  such  a  sentence  was  bad  law, 
but  that  it  was  not  law."  "  It  is 
generally  laid  down  that  acts  of 
Parliament,  contrary  to  reason, 
are  void. "  "  Evil  customs  ought 
to  be  abolished." — Littleton. 
"  Every  use  (or  custom)  is  evil 
which  is  against  reason  " — Coke. 


110 


DEMOCRACY    OF    CHRISTIANITY. 


Mal.  iii.  7.  "  And  behold  ye  are 
risen  tip  in  your  fathers'  stead,  an 
increase  of  sinful  men  to  augment 
yet  the  fierce  anger  of  the  Lord  to- 
ward Israel." — Dettt-  xxxii-  14- 
"Be  ye  not  as  your  fathers  un- 
to whom  the  former  prophets  have 
cried  #  *  *  but  they  did  not 
hear,  nor  hearken  unto  me,  saith 
the  Lord." — Zech.  i.  4. 

"  Ye  shall  do  no  unrighteousness 
in  judgment.  "-Lev.  xix.  35.  "And 
thou  shalt  do  that  which  is  right 
and  good  in  the  sight  of  the  Lord." 
— Deut.  vi.  18.  "  Ye  shall  do  no 
unrighteousness  in  judgment  ^  * 
*  but  in  righteousness  shalt  thou 
judge  thy  neighbor." — Lev.  xix. 
15.  •'  For  if  ye  thoroughly  amend 
your  ways  and  your  doings,  if  ye 
thoroughly  execute  judgment  hcticeen 
a  man  and  his  neighbor^  *  *  then 
(thus  saith  the  Lord  of  hosts)  I  will 
cause  you  to  dwell  in  this  place." 
— Jer.  vii.  5,  &c.  "  Thus  saith  the 
Lord,  Execute  judgment  in  the 
morning  and  deliver  the  spoiled  out 
of  the  hand  of  the  oppressor." — 
J«:R.xxi.  12. 

*  Thou  shalt  not  wrest  the  judg- 
ment of  thy  poor  in  his  cause. 
Keep  thee  far  from  a  false  matter, 
and  the  innocent  and  the  righteous 
Md,y  thou  not,  for  I  will  not  justify 
ilie  wicked.  And  thou  shalt  take 
no  gift,  for  the  gift  blindeth  the 
tte'wise,  and  perverteth  the  words 
«»/ the  righteous." — Exod.  xxiii. 
6-8.  "  If  there  be  a  controversy 
between  men,  and  they  come  into 
judgment,  that  the  judges  may 
judge  them,  then  they  shall  justily 
the  righteous  and  condemn  the 
wicked." — Deut.  xxv.  1.  "The 
law  of  the  Lord  is  perfect.  *  * 
The  statutes  of  the  Lord  are  right. 
*  *  The  judgments  of  the  Lord 
are  true  and  righteous,  altogeth- 
er."— Ps.  xix.  7-9.  "  Forever,0 
Lord,  thy  word  is  settled  in  heav- 
en."—Ps-  cxix.  89.  "  Thou  hast 
trodden  down  all  them  that  err 
from  thy  statutes."— I B.  118.    "I 


"  Where  the  foundation  is  weak 

the   structure  falls." Notes — 

"  What  is  invalid  from  the  be- 
ginning, can  not  be  made  valid 
by  length  of  time." — I  b. 


"  Those  rights  which  God  and 
nature  have  established,  and  which 
are  therefore  called  natural  rights, 
such  as  life  and  liberty  need  not 
the  aid  of  human  laws  to  be 
more  efTectually  vested  in  every 
man  than  they  are;  neither  do  they 
receive  any  additional  strength, 
when  declared  by  the  municipal 
laws  to  be  inviolable.  On  the  con- 
trary no  human  legislation  has 
power  to  abridge  or  destroy  them, 
unless  the  owner  himself  shall 
commit  some  act  that  amounts  to  a 
forfeiture." — Fortescue.  "  The 
law  favors  liberty."- Wood.  "The 
law  favoreth  a  man's  person  before 
his  possessions." — Noyes. 


"This  law  (natural  law)  is  writ- 
ten upon  the  heart  of  every  man, 
teaching  him  what  to  choose  and 
what  to  refuse.  AVhat  is  written 
by  reason  in  the  heart  can  not  be 
etTaced,  neither  is  it  liable  to 
change,  either  from  place  or  time, 
but  ought  to  be  preserved  every 
where  by  all  men.  For  the  laws 
of  nature  are  immutable,  and  the 
reason  of  their  immutability  is  this, 
that  they  have  for  their  foundation 
the  nature  of  things,  which  is  al- 
ways and  every  where  the  same. 
=*  ' '*  Against  these  there  is  no 
prescription,  or  statute,  or  usage; 
and  should  any  be  enacted,  they 
would  not  be  statutes  or  usages 
but  corrupt  customs." — Doct  & 
Stud.  p.  2-5.  "Derived  power 
can  not  be  superior  to  the  power 
from  which  it  is  derived."— Noyes. 
"  In  judging  of  customs,  strength 
of  reason  is  to  be  considered,  and 


DEMOCRACY   OF  CHRISTIANITy. 


Ill 


esteem  all  thy  precepts  concerning 
all  thincTs  to  be  right  " — In.  128. 
*'  Thy  law  is  the  truth." — Ib.  142. 
'•  Thy  word  is  true  from  the  be- 
ginning, and  every  one  of  thy  judg- 
ments endureth  forever."-!  B.  160. 

"  Seek  judgment,  relieve  the  op- 
pressed, judge  the  fatherless,  plead 
for  the  widow."— IsA.  i.  17.  "  He 
looked  for  judgment,  but  behold 
oppression," — Ib,  v.  7.  "  Loose 
the  bands  of  wickedness  *  *  undo 
the  heavy  burdens  *  *  let  the  op- 
pressed go  free  *  *  break  every 
yoke." — I B.  Iviii.  6-  "  Thus  saith 
the  Lord,  Ye  have  not  hearkened 
unto  me  in  proclaiming  liberty,  ev- 
ery man  to  his  brother,  and  every 
man  to  his  neighbor;  behold  I  pro- 
claim a  liberty  for  you,  saith  the 
Lord,  to  the  sword,  to  the  pesti- 
lence, and  to  the  famine,  and  I  will 
make  you  to  be  removed  into  all 
the  kingdoms  of  the  earth." — Jkr- 
xxxiv.^  17.  "Proclaim  liberty 
throughout  all  the  land,  unto  all 
the  inhabitants  thereof." — Lev. 
XXV.  10.  (See  also  Neh.  v.  1-13. 
Joel  iii.  3.  A^nos  ii.  6.  Matth. 
xxxiii.  4-14,  and  James  v.  4.) 

"For  there  is  nopowerbutof  God, 
and  the  powers  that  be  are  ordain- 
ed of  God."  ^  *  For  rulers  are 
not  a  terror  to  good  works  but  to 
the  evil.  Wilt  thou  not  then  be 
afraid  of  the  power  ?  Do  good  and 
thou  shalt  have  praise  of  the  same. 
For  he  is  the  minister  of  God  to 
thee  for  good.  But  if  thou  do  that 
which  is  evil,  be  afraid;  for  he 
beareth  not  the  sword  in  vain,  for 
he  is  the  minister  of  God,  a  reven- 
ger to  him  that  doeth  evil.  *  * 
For  they  are  God's  ministers  at- 
tending continually  upon  this  very 
thincf." — Paul  In  RoiviANSxiii.  1-0, 
"  But  Ahab  *  *  did  sell  himself 
to  work  wickedness  in  the  sight  of 
theLord."-!  Kingsxxi,  25.  "The 
God  of  Israel  said,  the  Rock  of 
Israel  spake  unto  me.  He  that  ru- 
leth  over  man  must  be  just,  ruling 
in  the  fear  of  God." — David  in  II 
Sam.  xxiii.  3. 


not    length    of   time." — LiTri^E* 

TON. 


"  The  law  there foi-e  which  sup- 
ports slavery  and  opposes  liberty, 
must  necessarily  be  condemned  as 
cruel,  for  every  feeling  of  human 
nature  advocates  liberty.  Slavery 
is  introduced  through  human  wick- 
edness, but  God  advocates  liberty 
by  the  nature  which  he  has  given 
to  man.  Wherefore,  liberty  torn 
from  man,  always  seeks  to  return 
to  him,  and  it  is  the  same  with  ev- 
ery thing  that  is  deprived  of  its 
native  freedom.  On  this  account 
it  is  that  the  man  who  does  not  fa- 
vor liberty  must  always  be  con- 
demned as  unjust  and  cruel,  and 
hence    the    English    law    always 

favors   liberty," For  fescue. — 

"  Whenever  the  question  of  liber- 
ty seems  doubtful,  the  decision 
must  be  in  favor  of  liberty." — Di- 
gest. 


"  The  lawful  power  is  from  God 
alone,  but  the  power  of  wrong  is 
from  the  devil,  and  not  from  God, 
and  whosesoever  work  a  king  shall 
do,  his  .servant  he  is  whose  work 
he  docs.  Wherefore  when  he  does 
justice  he  is  the  minister  of  the 
Eternal  King,  but  when  he  does 
Tnriirhteousness,  he  is  the  servant 
of  tlic  devil,  *  *  For  he  is 
called  a  king,  for  ruling  righteous- 
ly, and  not  because  he  reigns. 
Wherefore  he  is  a  king  when  he 
governs  with  justice,  but  a  tyrant 
when  he  oppresses  the  people 
committed  to  his  charge." — Brac- 
TON.  "An  act  of  Parliament  may 
be  void  from  its  first  creation,  as  an 
act  against  natural  equity,  for  the 
laws  of  nature  are  immutable — 
they  arc  the  law  of  laws." — Ho- 

BART. 


112  DEMOCRACY  OF  CHRISTIANITY. 

In  our  selection  of  tlie  Hebrew  maxims  and  mandates  of 
Common  Law  we  have  not  confined  ourselves  to  the  brief  text 
of  Moses,  but  have  intermingled  with  them  a  specimen  of  the 
divinely  inspired  commentaries  upon  the  code  which  subse- 
quent writers  have  furnished,  that  a  better  idea  migbt  be  con- 
veyed of  its  spirit  and  bearings.  And  this  idea  will  not  be  the 
less  exact  and  comprehensive  on  account  of  the  variety  of  style 
of  so  many  different  authors,  poetic,  devotional,  historical,  pro- 
phetic, hortatory,  and  argumentative,  running  through  the  fifteen 
intervening  centuries  between  Moses  and  Paul.  It  will  appear 
from  the  connexion  in  which  these  extracts  are  found  that, 
•witb  few  exceptions,  they  were  manifestly  written  in  direct 
relation  to  judicial  or  executive  acts  of  civil  government,  that  a 
considerable  portion  of  them  were  addressed  to  the  people, 
and  chiefly  to  the  end  of  urging  upon  them  their  own  responsi- 
bilities in  respect  to  the  administration  of  law,  one  or  two 
specimens  only  having  direct  reference  to  their  necessary  suh- 
jection  to  the  administration  of  it.  Selections  of  a  similar 
character  might  have  been  multiplied  to  an  indefinite  extent, 
but  these  may  suffice. 

No  well  informed  and  candid  reader  will  fail  to  recognize 
and  admit  the  close  affinity  and  manifest  connexion  between 
the  Hebrew  Common  Law  and  the  English,  and  that  the  lat- 
ter has  its  origin  in  the  former.  No  historical  fact  in  respect 
to  the  connexion  between  the  laws  of  one  age  or  nation  and 
another  can  be  more  apparent.  Some  of  the  English  writers 
of  Common  Law  have  indeed  made  their  appeals  directly  to 
the  Scriptures,  others  of  them  employ  Scripture  language,  and 
some  of  them  have  laid  it  down  as  a  maxim  that  Christianity 
is  Common  Law  in  England — a  position  odious  to  some,  and 
partly,  perhaps,  because  it  has  been  so  construed  as  to  favor  a 
Religious  Establishment  by  law.  What  Ave  maintain  is  that 
the  Christian  Scriptures,  and  especially  the  Code  of  Moses  and 
the  inspired  expositions  and  applications  of  that  code  have 
been  the  instrumentahty  employed  by  Divine  Providence,  to 
bestow  upon  us  and  upon  mankind,  all  that  is  valuable  in  Eng- 
ish  Common  Law,  our  American  Declaration  of  Independence 


DEMOCRACY  OF  CHRISTIANITY.  113 

with  its  self-evident  truths,  being  onl}^  a  younger  shoot  from 
the  same  parent  stock.  And  this  is  equivalent  to  saying  that 
the  Hebrews  were  brought  up  out  of  Egypt  "  with  a  mighty 
hand,  and  an  outstretched  arm,"  that  they  were  disciplined  in 
the  wilderness,  organized  into  a  commonwealth,  and  entrusted 
with  the  code  of  Sinai  by  the  hand  of  JMoses,  (among  other 
objects)  for  this  very  end ;  and  that  in  this,  the  Gentiles  are 
receiving  a  portion  of  their  promised  blessing  through  Abra- 
ham. Nor  do  we,  in  saying  this,  forget  or  overlook  the  trans- 
mission of  this  and  other  and  still  more  precious  blessings 
through  the  medium  of  the  promised  Seed,  the  Messiah. 
"  Known  unto  God  are  all  his  works  from  the  beginning  of  the 
world,"  and  they  are  all  comprehended  in  one  ample  fold.  ., 

In  a  comparison  of  our  modern  Common  Law  with  the  an- 
cient, it  is  easy  to  see  which  is  the  parent  and  which  is  the 
child — which  is  the  majestic  and  authoritative  mandate  of  the 
Creator,  and  which  is  the  feebler  response  of  the  creature — 
which  is  the  thunder  peal  of  Sinai,  and  which  is  the  faint  echo 
of  after  ao-^s,  comino-  back,  from  the  ends  of  the  earth.  In  the 
former,  God  says — "  Seek  my  face,"  for  "  thou  shalt  have  no 
other  gods  before  me."  In  the  latter,  mankind  are  beginning 
to  lisp  their  answer — "Thy  face.  Lord,  will  we  seek:" — "  Oth- 
er lords  have  had  dominion  over  us,  [Baal  and  Moloch,  Woden 
and  Thor]  but  by  thee  only  will  we  make  mention  of  thy  name." 

As  yet,  however,  the  lesson  is  but  imperfectly  learned.  The 
youthful  English  Common  Law  cons  its  new  lesson  under  the 
roof  of  old  kingly  prerogative,  and  stammers  as  it  speaks,  lest 
"  parliament"  should  overhear  and  chide.  It  has  still  its  hu- 
man law  and  its  divine,  and  in  a  sense  that  supposes  that  they 
may  be  rivals,  and  it  sometimes  seems  to  hesitate  which  shall 
give  way !  "  An  act  of  parliament  may  be  void  from  its  crea- 
tion, as  an  act  repugnant  to  natural  equity."  "  But  this,"  con- 
tinues Hobart,  "■  must  be  a  very  clear  case — the  judges  will 
strain  hard  rather  than  interpret  an  act  void,  ab  initio  !'* 
There  is  a  human  legislator  to  satisfy,  if  possible,  as  well  as  the 
divine.  Jehovah  and  mammon  oftentimes  might  not  be  more  diffi- 
cult to  reconcile.    The  temptation  proves  too  strong,  and  EngUsh 


114>  DEMOCRACY   OF    CHRISTIANITT. 

Common  Law  becomes  in  the  hands  of  most  judg'es  what  the- 
ological truth  so  often  is  to  its  expositors,  a  beautiful  theory ^  a 
lauded  abstraction. 

The  Hebrew  Common  Law  was  promulgated  in  a  different 
style,  and  was  to  have  been  administered  under  other  auspi- 
ces. It  knew  of  no  legislator  but  God,  it  provided  for  no  oth- 
er, it  spoke  of  no  other,  it  permitted  no  other.  It  ignored,  at 
once,  all  human  enactments,  all  human  decisions,  all  human 
precedents.  It  announced  the  law  of  God^  and  there  ended 
its  message.  That  law  ascertained,  and  its  application  made 
apparent,  there  was  no  further  question  pending.  The  law 
was  to  be  obeyed — was  to  be  administered ;  and  in  the  ad- 
ministration  of  law  the  Hebrew  community  learned  and  found 
obedience  to  law — the  law  of  their  Maker.  Some  speak  of  the 
ancient  Hebrews  as  semi-barbarians,  and  perhaps  truly.  Yet 
to  these  same  semi-barbarians,  if  they  were  such,  God  commit- 
ted the  administration  of  his  Law,  as  a  civil  code,  and  made  it 
their  sole  political  and  judicial  guide  and  shelter.  How  far 
they  honored  their  responsibilities  is  not  now  the  question,  nor 
into  what  depths  they  sunk  by  their  disobedience.  We  hold 
up  the  fact  of  their  experiment,  and  ask  whether  it  be  ac- 
counted safe  for  our  modern  civilization  and  Christianity  to  at- 
tempt entering  upon  a  similar  one,  or  how  long  before  it  will 
be  prudent  for  us  to  take  the  elevated  position  that  God  as- 
sio-ned,  thirty-three  centuries  ago,  to  semi-barbarians,  just 
emancipated  from  Eg}  ptian  bondage  ?  "VYe  say  farther  that 
the  experiment  of  Hebrew  self-government  under  the  demo- 
cratic polity  provided  for  them,  succeeded  to  the  same  extent 
that  the  religious  institutions  provided  for  them  succeeded — 
that  so  far  as  they  were  elevated  at  all  by  the  divine  culture  of 
the  Mosaic  economy  (and  we  hold  their  elevation  to  have  been 
an  essential  stage  of  human  improvement)  it  Avas  an  elevation 
that  made  them  more  democratic,  and  that  the  decline  and  re- 
vival of  their  religion  and  the  decline  and  revival  of  their  de- 
mocracy went  hand  in  hand,  at  every  subsequent  period  of 
their  history. 

Whether  the  Hebrew  statutes  recorded  in  the  books  of  Mo- 


DEMOCRACY  OF  CHRISTIAMITV.  115 

ses  should  be  considered  an  integral  part  and  exponent  of  the 
Hebrew  Common  Law  or  a  divinely  enacted  Code  in  addition 
to  it,  matters  little  to  the  point  now  before  us.  In  either  case, 
they  constituted  together  a  revelation  of  the  divine  will,  as 
permanent  as  the  Hebrew  state,  or  Mosaic  economy  ;  as  such 
they  admitted  of  no  human  additions  or  modifications  and  must 
stand  "  till  all  be  fulfilled" — till  their  mission  was  accomplish- 
ed, the  new  dispensation  introduced,  and  all  that  was  tempo- 
rary in  the  old  should  "  vanish  away."  So  that  the  Hebrew 
courts  of  justice  for  nearly  fifteen  hundred  years  were  shut  up 
to  the  Mosaic  code,  in  other  words,  to  the  law  of  God,  the 
highest  standard  in  difficult  and  perplexing  cases  being — 
"Judge  the  people  with  just  judgment,"  "That  which  is  alto- 
gether just  shalt  thou  follow,"  "Ye  shall  do  no  unrighteousness 
in  judgment,"  "Thou  shalt  do  that  which  is  right  and  good  in  the 
sight  of  the  Lord,"  "For  the  judgment  is  God's" — equivalent  to 
the  modern  common  law  maxims :  "  The  reasona  bleness  of  law  is 
the  soul  of  law,"  and  "The  right  of  the  case  is  the  law  of  the  case." 
Some  persons  professionally  or  habitually  conversant  with 
judicial  proceedings,  authorities,  precedents,  statutes,  and 
special  pleadings,  as  we  commonly  witness  them,  have 
objected,  strongly,  to  the  proposed  common  use  and  practical 
application  of  these  great  principles  and  foundation  maxims  of 
Common  Law.  They  are  horror-stricken  with  the  idea  that 
courts  and  juries  should  ever  adventure  under  any  conscien- 
tious misgivings,  ideas  of  natural  justice,  of  moral  right,  or  of 
divine  requirement,  to  swerve  from  the  established  precedents, 
the  received  authorities,  and  especially  from  the  imperial  ukase, 
the  royal  decree,  the  regularly  enacted  statute.  The  oath  of 
the  court  and  jury  to  be  governed  by  "law  and  evidence" 
they  construe  to  mean  a  solemn  promise,  in  the  fear  of  God, 
the  God  of  justice,  to  follow  the  duly  attested  parchments,  the 
regular  recorded  authorities,  the  officially  registered  precedents, 
wherever  they  may  lead,  though  Avith  the  clear  perception  all 
the  while  that  justice,  equity,  right,  and  divine  law  are  thereby 
exposed  to  be  trampled  in  the  dust;  nay,  with  the  full  convic- 
tion or  even  the  certain  knowledae  that  such  is  the  fact  of  the 


116  DEMOCRACY  OF  CHRISTIANITY. 

case,  for  the  time  being !  Any  thing  hke  resolving  all  our 
Courts  of  Law  into  courts  of  Equity  like  those  of  the  Hebrews, 
they  would  resist,  as  a  dangerous  innovation.  They  represent 
that  this  would  make  the  law  so  uncertain  that  it  w^ould  be 
safer  to  live  under  a  despotic  government  whose  edicts  were 
well  understood  than  under  a  democracy  where  such  loose 
usages  should  prevail.  They  would  deem  it  the  very  defini- 
tion of  anarch}^,  if  courts  and  juries  (especially  if  appointed  di- 
rectly by  the  people)  should  be  empowered  to  decide  what  is 
and  what  is  not  law  by  their  own  notions  of  what  is  just  and 
right.  They  allege  that  what  one  man  considers  just  another 
considers  unjust,  and  thus  the  law  would  become  uncertain 
and  the  government  impracticable. 

Now  this  objection  is  not  only  unfounded  but  directly  oppo- 
site to  the  known  facts  of  the  history  of  jurisprudence,  and 
equally  subversive  of  fundamental  morality,  the  foundations  of 
legal  science,  and  the  first  principles  of  civil  government. 

Sir  William  Jones,  one  of  the  most  learned  judges  of  mod- 
ern times,  the  most  profoundly  skilled  in  the  history  of  Asiatic 
as  well  as  European  law,  after  looking  over  the  whole  sub- 
ject, has  said : 

*•  It  is  pleasing  to  remark  the  similarity  or  rather  the  identi- 
ty of  those  conclusions  which  pure  unbiassed  reason,  in  all  ages 
and  nations,  seldom  fails  to  draw,  in  such  judicial  inquiries  as 
are  not  fettered  and  manacled  by  positive  institutions." — Jones 
on  Bailments,  133. 

Chancellor  Kent  says : 

"  Such  is  the  imperfection  of  language  and  want  of  techni- 
cal skill  in  the  makers  of  law,  that  statutes  often  give  occasion 
to  the  most  perplexing  and  distressing  doubts  and  discussions, 
arising  from  the  ambiguity  that  att-  nds  them.  It  requires 
great  experience  as  well  as  the  command  of  a  perspicuous  dic- 
tion, to  frame  a  laAv  in  such  clear  and  precise  terms  as  to  se- 
cure it  from  ambiguous  expressions,  and  from  all  doubts  and 
criticisms  of  its  meaning." — Kent,  460. 

Many  terms  employed,  in  drafting  statutes  are  necessarily 
used  in  a  variety  of  significations.  And  hence  the  rule  has 
been  laid  down  that  the  language  of  wrilten  statutes  shall  he 
construed,  as  fa?'  as  possible,  in  accordance  with  natural  law. 


DEMOCRACY  OF  CHRISTIANITY.  117 

And  ^Yllen,  to  the  imcertainty  of  language,  we  add,  the  con- 
fusion of  ^voluminous  statutes  enacted  by  different  legislators, 
at  different  periods,  for  different  and  conflicting  objects,  with 
discordant  ideas  of  policy,  and  with  a  view  to  temporary  or  lo- 
cal utility,  forgetful  in  too  many  instances,  of  equity  and  jus- 
tice, the  difficulty  is  vastly  increased,  but  it  ends  not  here.  To 
the  volumes  of  ambiu'uous  and  discordant  statutes,  we  must 
add  as  many  more  of  equally  uncertain  and  contradictory  pre- 
cedents, reports,  and  decisions,  and  no  marvel  that  the  "  glori- 
ous uncertainty  of  the  law"  becomes  a  proverb.  Few  pend- 
ing cases  can  be  shown  to  be  exactly  parallel  to  any  cases  pre- 
viously decided,  and  the  conflicting  authorities,  decisions,  and 
precedents  that  shall  be  cited  by  opposing  parties,  at  a  single 
trial,  might  suffice  to  beget  a  despair  of  arriving  to  any  satis- 
factory conclusions  by  such  a  process.  If  precedents,  author- 
ities, or  even  statutes,  are  allowed  any  further  force  than  as 
subordinate  helps  to  ascertain  justice,  they  become  traps  and 
nets  rather  than  guides  or  defences.  And  no  enlightened  ju- 
rist would  expect  to  succeed  in  reducing  the  statutes  and  law 
decisions  in  any  state  or  nation  to  any  thing  like  the  or- 
der, method,  and  conformity  to  principle,  that  would  be  ne- 
cessary to  make  them  constitute  what  should  be  called  a  science, 
at  least  without  taking  the  great  principles  of  natural  equity 
as  his  standard  and  polar  star,  in  the  light  of  which  1 1  con- 
strue and  even  revise  the  anomalous  and  the  perplexing. 

The  truth  is.  Common  Law,  the  law  of  Nature,  the  law  of 
God,  the  same  that  was  authoritatively  committed  to  the  He- 
brews, by  the  hand  of  Moses,  is  vastly  more  definite,  more 
uniform,  more  stable,  more  intelligible,  than  any  other  law ; 
nay,  it  is  all  that  gives  perspicuity,  stability,  precision,  and  du- 
rability or  authority,  to  the  code  or  statutes  of  any  nation ;  that 
is  to  say,  in  any  desirable  application  of  those  terms.  The  de- 
cree may  indeed  be  intelligible  that  enacts  the  grossest  injus- 
tice, and  it  may  have  the  perpetuit)^,  whatever  it  may  be,  that 
attaches  to  the  tyranny  that  enacted  it,  but  mankind  have  no 
occasion  to  congratulate  themselves  either  upon  the  perspicu- 
ity, the  certainty,  or  the  permanency  of  such  edicts  or  statutes! 


118  DEMOCRACY  OT  CHRISTlANiTi'. 

So  far  as  any  enactments  are  in  harmony  with  human  rights 
and  tend  to  protect  them,  so  far  they  are  in  unison  with  Com- 
mon Law,  the  law  of  nature,  the  law  of  God,  and  are  to  be 
construed  and  understood  in  the  hgbt  of  them.  And  this 
principle  of  interpreting  the  laws  is  recognized  by  all  enlight- 
ened jurists  whose  object  it  is  to  maintain  justice,  and  protect 
human  rights.  If  such  a  government  be  not  practicable,  there 
can  be  no  good  reason  for  maintaining  any  government  at  all. 
And  the  government  that  instead  of  preventing  injustice  only 
busies  itself  in  committing  it  (as  any  government  must  do  that 
is  not  conformed  to  natural  law)  becomes  a  pubKc  pest  in- 
stead of  a  protector. 

Jehovah  made  no  mistake,  and  Moses  committed  no  blunder,, 
in  committing  the  administration  of  natural  law  to  the  Hebrews. 
"  There  is  a  spirit  in  man,  and  the  inspiration  of  the  Almighty 
hath  given  him  understanding."  There  is  a  moral  sense  in 
every  man,  revealing  the  right  and  the  wrong,  the  just  and 
the  unjust.  Even  little  children  know  many  of  the  principles 
of  justice,  at  an  early  age.  All  men  know,  or  may  know,  what 
is  justice  to  others,  by  inquiring  what  they  would  regard  as 
just  to  themselves.  It  Avas  for  no  lack  of  the  power  of  moral 
perception  that  the  ancient  heathen  lost  the  proper  conception 
and  due  estimate  of  inalienable  human  rights.  It  was  because 
they  had  become  sensualized  and  besotted,  as  the  masses  of 
heathen  nations  now  are,  and  were  willing  to  sell  their  birth- 
right for  a  mess  of  pottage.  This  was  the  difficulty  with  the 
old  Greeks  and  Romans.  This  was  the  difficulty  with  our  An- 
glo-Saxon fathers,  and  this  was  the  difficulty  with  the  ancient 
Hebrews  until  God  made  himself  heard  and  seen,  by  his  won- 
derful visitation,  and  roused  them  from  their  moral  lethargy. 
Thus  roused,  the  law  of  Sinai  found  a  response  in  their  own 
bosoms.  It  gave  them  no  new  faculties — ^no  new  powers  of 
perception — ^no  new  objects  of  moral  vision.  It  did  compel 
their  attention.  It  did  appeal  to  their  hearts.  The  Hebrews 
were  essentially  elevated.  And  through  them,  the  lesson  has 
been  taught  in  some  measure,  or  is  in  process  of  teaching,  to 
the  whole  ciAdlized  world.  1 


^  DEMOCRACY  OF  CHRISTIANTY.  1 1 9 

The  trial  by  jury,  and  the  growing  authority  of  Common 
Law  are  important  stages  in  human  progress.     When  legisla- 
tive enactments  became   too  complex  and  contradictory  to  be 
either  understood  or  reconciled,  or  else  too  unjust  to  be  borne 
or  administered,  enlightened  Christian  jurists,  from  time  to 
time,  relieved  themselves  from  self-reproach,  and  the   people 
from  oppression,  by  declaring,  in  the  name  of  nature's  God,  in 
the  name  of  humanity,  and  in  the  teeth  of  princely  tyrants  and 
venal  legislatures,  the  paramount  supremacy  of  Common  Law, 
the  law  of  the  Right,  the  self-evident,  the  universal,  the  irre- 
pealable  Law.     In  this  they  approximated  towards  the  code 
and  the  institutions  of  Moses  which  the  Scriptures  had  made 
known  to  them,  and  the  spirit  of  which  Christianity  had  pre- 
served and  diffused  among  the  people.     Then,  when  conflict- 
ing precedents,  technicalities,  forms,  and  enactments,  in  des- 
pite of  all  that  had  been  done  to  diminish  their  authority,  had 
manacled  and  crippled  the  freedom  of  judicial  inquir}^  and  ac- 
tion beyond  farther  endurance,  the  trial  by  jury  introduced  the 
counter  element  of  plain  common  sense  and  unsophisticated 
conscience,  to  assist  in  the  administration  of  justice.     By  this 
means,  still  farther  accessions  of  natural  or  Common  Law  have 
been  added  to  the  former  stock.     In  the  meantime,  the  inde- 
pendence of  juries  and  their  original  sense  of  justice  have  suf- 
fered by  their  contact  with  the  jargon  of  the  courts  and  the  as- 
sumptions of  legislative  power,  until  a  further  step  seems  re- 
quisite to  rescue  the  judiciary  from  impending  disgrace,  to  pre- 
vent it  from  becoming  one  vast   chess  board  upon  which  pro- 
fessional gamesters  may  play  their  games  of  dexterity  and 
chance,  at  the  public  expense.     What  shall  that  new  step  be, 
but  the  absolute  and  actual  supremacy  of  Common  Law,  the 
identity  of  law  with  equit}^   and  the  farther  restriction,  to  say 
the  least,  if  not  dethronement,  of  legislative  prerogative  and 
power  ? 

And  how,  without  something  of  this  kind  can  we  ever  real- 
ize anything  deserving  the  name  of  political  or  legal  science, 
that  can  be  studied  and  learned.  Every  science  has  its  funda- 
mental first  principles,  self-evident,  or  shining  in  their  own 


120  DEMOCRACY  OF  CHRISTIANITY.      J|t^ 

lio-ht.     t'rom  these   the  various  parts  of  the  science  are  to  be 
educed.     The  sciences  are  to  be  studied  and  learned ;  not  en- 
acted by  statute  1     So  far  as  they  are  learned  and  appropri- 
ately applied,  so  far,  and  no  farther,   can  beneficial  results  be 
secured  by  them.     They  have  a  certain  and  veritable  existence 
and  can  neither  be  enacted  or  repealed.     They  are  the  same 
in  all  places  and  at  all  times.     Thus  it  must  be  ^vith  the  sci- 
ence of  government  and  law.     But  how  can  any  such  science 
be  cultivated,  understood,  or  applied  to  its  proper  ends,  so  long 
as  the  people  are  deluded  with  the  notion  that  their  rulers  or 
thtir  r(  prtsenlatives,or  they  themselves,  can  make  civil  law,  any 
more  than  they  can  make  the  laws  of  chemistry  or  electricity, 
or  mechanics  ?     Or  how  shall  a  professedly  free  and  democratic 
people  be  cured  of  such  delusions  or  relieved  from  such  quack- 
eries, till  they  study  the  lesson   God  gave  to  tiie  Hebrews, 
thirty-three   centuries   ago,   namely,  that  the  law  is  already 
made  to  their  hands,  (the  law  of  their  social  nature  as  well  as 
of  their  physical  constitutions)   that  all  they  have  to  do  is  to 
learn  and  obey  and  apply  it,  for  the  purposes  for  which  it  was 
designed,  instead  of  keeping  legislatures  in  pay,  six  or  nine 
ra  mths  yearly,  to  manufacture  law  for  them,  which  they  can 
no  more  do  than  they  can  manufacture  the  laws  of  gravitation 
and  of  motion  ? 


We  have  been  drawn  farther  into  these  disquisitions  than 
we  intended.  Our  simple  object  was  to  bring  out  for  inspec- 
tion, the  Hebrew  ideas  of  law  and  of  legislative  power,  as 
taught  them  by  their  peculiar  course  of  training  and  by  the 
institutions  and  laws  provided  for  them ;  and  to  furnish  a  clue 
to  the  natural  and  historical  connexion  between  the  early  les- 
sons thus  given  to  that  faA'ored  portion  of  tlie  human  family, 
and  the  subsequent  progress  of  other  portions  of  the  race,  par- 
ticularly our  own.  We  knew  not  how  to  present  so  vast  a  sub- 
ject of  inquiry,  in  a  shorter  space.  In  doing  it,  we  have  prob- 
ably given  expression  to  some  sentiments  that  the  reader  will 
question.  That  privilege  is  his,  and  we  only  ask  of  him  to 
consider  well,  before  he  decides,  and  that  be  permit  the  indis- 


DEMOCRACY  OF  CHKISTIANITi'.  121 

putable  facts  of  the  case  to  be  engraven  upon  his  memory. 
God  directed  tlie   Hebrews  to  be  organized  into  a  democratic 
ccmmonwealth,  for  the  orderly  administration  of  justice.    That 
organization  consisted  of  a  judiciary  chosen  by  the  people,  but 
reserving  to  themselves,  en  masse^   the  adjudication  of  capital 
offences,  •with   a  high  court  of  general  reference,  in  difficult 
cases,  in  which  the  divinely  appointed  priest  acted  with  the 
democratic  judge.     To  the  people,  as  thus  organized,  God  com- 
mitted the  administration  of  civil  p'overnment,  without  the  in- 
tervention  of  any   legislative  body,  or,  as  will  be  shown  here- 
after, of  any  central  executive  power.     Their  legislation  was 
all  done  up  for  them,  by   God  himself,  in  the  beginning,  and 
the  law  was  equivalent  to  what  we  call  the  law  of  nature,  the 
law  of  the  right,  or  Common  Law,  with  a  few  brief  statutes  to 
illustrate  its  bearings,  and  rules  of  evidence  and  trial.     This 
describes  the  whole,  that  is,  after  leaving  out  the  peculiarities 
of  the  Old  Testament  economy  as  a  system  of  symbolical  teach- 
ing and  consequent  ecclesiastical  polity,  which  have  now  pass- 
ed awa3\     Let  these  facts  be  pondered,  especially  the  absence 
of  any  legislature,  and  let  it  be  asked,   Avhat  was  the  signifi- 
cancy  of  all  this  ?     What    did   God  teach  by  it,  and  what   is 
the  bearing  of  the  lesson  thus  taught,   upon  the  principle  of 
democracy,  in  connexion  with  the  institutions  of  Moses? 


CHAPTER  X. 

CIVIL    AND    JUDICIAL    CODE    FURTHER    ANALYZED. 

We  have  said  that  while  the  Decalogue  contained  the  foun- 
dation principles  of  the  civil  Code  of  Moses,  it  was  distinguisha- 
ble from  it,  inasmuch  as  no  human  judiciary  could  administer 
it,  in  all  its  spirituality  of  bearing  and  import. 

We  have  also  said  that  the  civil  Code,  excluding  from  it  the 
peculiarities  of  the  typical  and  priestly  dispensation,  now  abol- 


122  DEMOCRACY    OF  CHRISTIANITY. 

ished,  was  so  brief  and  generic  as  to  constitute  little  more  than 
a  compend  of  Common  Law,  or  exemplifications  or  illustrations 
of  it,  in  a  few  principal  directions,  including  the  laws  of  evi- 
dence and  judicial  proceedings.    . 

That  the  reader  may  the  better  judge  of  these  statements 
we  will  now  turn  his  attention,  more  directly,  to  the  proofs  of 
them. 

The  decalogue  is  contained  in  the  twentieth  chapter  of  Ex- 
odus, and  that  chapter  concludes  with  some  directions  con- 
cerning the  construction  of  altars  for  sacrifice.  The  twenty- 
first  chapter  opens  as  follows: 

"  Now  these  are  the  judgments  which  thou  shalt  set  up  be- 
fore them." — V.  1. 

''Judgments. — The  word  here  means  judicial  laws,  or  rules 
of  judgment  by  which  the  magistrates  and  judges  should  pro- 
ceed, in  determining  causes,  and  trying  criminals.  Making 
some  allowance  for  the  circumstances  varying  in  different  ages 
and  nations  there  is  a  spi7'it  of  equity  in  these  laws,  which  is 
well  worthy  to  be  transfused  into  those  of  any  state." — Scott's 
Commentary. 

From  the  second  to  the  eleventh  verse  certain  maxims  are 
laid  down  in  respect  to  the  laws  of  servitude  and  of  marriage. 
Then,  from  the  twelfth  to  the  twenty-first  verse,  we  find  rules 
to  be  observed  in  the  case  of  trials  for  capital  offences,  particu- 
larly murder.  From  the  twenty-second  to  the  twenty-seventh 
verse,  there  are  similar  rules  to  be  observed,  in  trials  for  per- 
sonal assaults  of  various  descriptions.  From  the  twenty-eighth 
to  the  thirty-second  verse,  we  have  illustrations  of  the  extent 
of  human  responsibility  in  cases  where  death  is  occasioned  by 
reckless  carelessness  on  the  part  of  any  person,  as  when  a  man 
or  woman  is  gored  by  an  ox,  belonging  to  another.  From  the 
thirty-second  to  the  thirty-sixth  verse,  which  closes  the  chap- 
ter, the  same  principle  of  responsibihty  is  illustrated,  by  famil- 
iar cases,  in  respect  to  damages  to  property  by  similar  care- 
lessness. 

In  like  manner  the  greater  part  of  the  twenty-second  chap- 
ter is  occupied  with  rules  of  adjudication  in  cases  of  theft — in 
cases  of  trespass  upon  another's  property — in  cases  of  losses  of 


DEMOCRACY  OF  CMRISTIANITr.  123 

property  left  in  the  keeping  of  another,  and  of  property  bor- 
rowed— 'in  cases  of  breach  of  promise  of  marriage,  &c.,  &c., 
also  concerning  debts,  interest,  and  securities. 

In  the  twenty-third  chapter  are  a  few  similar  directions  con- 
cerning cattle  strayed  from  their  owners  or  in  need  of  assist- 
ance. 

The  law  of  restitution  in  cases  of  trespass,  violen3e,  or 
false  testimony,  is  given  in  the  sixth  chapter  of  Leviti- 
cus  (verses  1 — 5.)  The  eighteenth  chapter  of  Leviticus 
is  chiefly  occupied  with  specifications  of  the  restrict- 
tion  of  marriages  among  near  relations,  and  the  pro- 
hibition of  certain  bestial  and  scandalous  practices  ; 
the  nineteenth  chapter  contains  a  few  verses  concerning 
the  gleanings  of  harvest  fields  and  the  wages  of  hired 
persons,  (v.  9-12.)  and  concerning  adulterj'-  (v.  20.)  The 
twentieth  chapter  contains  some  directions  for  the  pun- 
ishment of  adultery  and  similar  crimes.  The  twenty- 
fourth  chapter  contains  a  repetition  of  the  law  concerning 
the  punishment  of  murder  and  other  oftences  (v.  17-22.) 
The  twenty-fifth  chapter  contains  laws  against  usury,  (v. 
35-37.)  also  concerning  bondmen  and  servants  (v.  39-55. 

The  fifth  chapter  of  Numbers  contains  directions  for  the 
restitution  of  the  injured,  (v.  7.  8.)  also  a  peculiar  law  of 
adjudication  by  the  priest  in  matrimonial  jealousies.  The 
twenty-seventh  chapter  contains  a  statement  of  the  rights 
of  females  to  inherit  property,  and  the  thirtieth  chapter 
contains  laws  concerning  vows,  of  men,  of  wives,  and  of 
daughters,  The  thirty-fifth  chapter  contains  directions 
concerning  arrests  and  trials  for  murder,  including  the 
law  of  testimony. 

The  book  of  Deuteronomy  contains  various  repetitions 
with  occasional  amplifications  of  the  preceding  directions, 
and  a  few  additions.  In  the  fifteenth  chapter  it  is  provi- 
ded that  servants  when  released  in  the  jubilee  should  be 
amply  compensated  for  their  services — another  item 
which  illustrates  the  nature  of  the  Hebrew  servitude.  The 
nineteenth  chapter  contains  some  repetitions  of  the  rules 


124  DEivlOCRACV    OF    CRISTIANITY. 

for  trying  persons  charged  with  murder  ;  it  provides  for 
the  punishment  of  false  witnesses,  and  prohibits  the  re- 
moval of  land-marks.  The  twentieth  chapter  contains 
certain  laws  in  lespect  to  war  ;  the  twenty-first,  concern 
ing  captives  taken  in  war,  concerning  persons  found  slain 
when  the  murderer  was  unknown  ;  and  also  concerning 
wives  and  disobedient  sons,  and  the  mode  of  executing 
criminals.  The  twenty-second  chapter  is  chiefly  occu- 
pied with  a  recapitulation  of  sundry  laws  previously  re- 
corded, and  some  amplifications  of  the  hw  of  marriage. 
The  twenty-fourth  contains  the  law  of  divorce,  and  a  re- 
petition of  some  previous  enactments.  The  twenty-fifth 
contains  some  further  directions  to  judges  concerning 
punishments,  and  some  peculiar  laws  concerning  mar- 
riages. &c. 

This  Index  which  may  perhaps  fuij  of  being  entirely 
complete  will  answer  the  ends  of  the  writer,  in  directing 
the  reader  to  the  principal  parts  of  the  civil  and  judicial 
code  of  the  Hebrews.  The  whole  may  be  read  over  delib- 
erately in  one  or  two  hours  ;  and  that  single  fact  in  con- 
trast with  the  codes  of  other  nations,  too  voluminous 
for  the  mass  of  the  people  interested  in  them,  is 
a  fact  that  speaks  volumes.  That  fact  of  itself  proves 
that  the  code  could  not  not  have  been  intended  to  cover, 
in  the  minute  detail  of  modern  legislative  enactment,  all 
the  ground  of  judicial  proceeding,  and  consequently  its 
use  must  be  found,  as  we  have  already  intimated,  in  fixing 
the  fundamental  principles  and  the  essential  grounds  and 
modes  of  judicial  decision, 

A  mere  glance  at  the  topics  of  judicial  action  here  indi- 
cated is  equally  instructive,  and  impels  to  a  similar  con- 
clusion. Mixny  forms  of  crime,  of  injury,  and  of  aggres- 
sion would  need  judicial  attention,  in  respect  to  which  no 
specific  enactment,  (on  the  modern  legislative  model) 
could  be  produced  ;  and  so,  according  to  modern  notions 
of  jurisprudence,  the  aggressor  would  go  unpunished  and 
the  victim  unredressed,  for  want  of  a  specific  enactment 


DEMOCRACY  OF  CHRISTIAIS'ITY.  125 

Not  so  in  the  Hebrew  courts,  if  it  were  there  understood, 
as  it  must  have  been,  that  these  "judgments  "  were  but 
exemplifications  and  illustrations  of  the  more  general 
common  law  maxim  to  "judge  the  people  with  just  judg-, 
ment,''  by  which,  at  all  times  their  decisions  were  to  be 
governed. 

The  very  style  and  form  in  which  these  "judgments" 
were  announced,  being  altogether  popular,  familiar, 
unstudied,  divested  of  all  legal  technicalities,  affected 
precision,  and  stiffness,  thrown  together  without  method, 
repeated  at  convenience,  amplified,  enlarged,  intermingled 
with  pious  exhortations,  prudential  counsels,  glowing  pre- 
dictions, affectionate  appeals,  and  even  with  ritual  and 
ceremonial  institutes,  tends  to  produce  the  same  impres- 
sion. They  were  addressed  to  the  common  sense  of  the 
masses,  and  the  responsibility  of  carrying  them  out  in  the 
spirit  with  which  they  were  dictated,  and  which  manifestly 
breathed  in  them  was  at  once  thrown  upon  them.  In  this 
way,  assuming  that  the  people  were  gifted  with,  conscience 
and  common  understanding,  the  administration  of  the  law, 
in  ordinary  cases,  would  be  no  difficult  task.  The  simple 
direction  to  "judge  righteously"  with  the  admonition 
"  for  the  judgment  is  God's,"  would  help  any  upright 
"judge  of  fifties  or  of  tens  ''  or  the  entire  "  congregation" 
to  dispose  of  most  cases  more  happily  in  a  single  day,  f'* 
than  most  of  our  complex  and  sophisticated  judicatories 
would  do  after  a  delay  of  months  and  even  years. 

A  second  glance  at  the  topics  introduced  in  these  "judg- 
ments "  will  show  that  the  selections  w(^e  made  in  the 
best  possible  manner,  to  illustrate  the  classes  of  cases  that 
would  be  most  difficult  to  decide  without  some  such  as- 
sistance, and  that,  with  all  their  conciseness,  they  were 
admirably  adapted  to  show  the  comprehensive  bearings 
of  the  principle  of  justice  in  a  great  variety  of  directions. 

And  yet  it  is  equally  apparent  that  if  civil  goverment 
could  now  be  confined  to  the  same  description  of  topics, 
its  sphere  of  activity  and  jurisdiction    would   be  greatly 


126  »         DEMOCRACif  OF  CHRISTIANITY. 

reduced,  and  the  work  of  legislation  would  soon  be  ex- 
hausted or  circumscribed  within  narrow  limits,  in  com- 
pari&oD  with  the  range  occupied  at  present.  Indeed  the 
.Hebrew  code  (leaving  out,  as  we  have  done,  what  was 
evidently  peculiar  to  that  typical  dispensation)  would  be 
found  to  be  almost  if  not  entirely  confined  to  the  protec- 
tion of  human  rights,  including  the  punishment  of  flagrant 
crime. 

It  must  be  conceded  that  there  are,  however,  some 
statutes  which  at  this  distance  of  time  it  is  not  very  easy 
to  classify,  so  as  to  be  certain  whether  they  should  be  con- 
sidered as  belonging  to  the  peculiar  and  temporary,  or 
whether  they  embody  a  principle  of  general  application. 
The  law  forbidding  usury,  ('' increase"  or  interest)  in 
pecuniary  transactions  between  Hebrews,  might  admit  of 
some  debate.  The  Hebrew  prophets  seem  to  rank  the  breach 
of  this  law  among  other  oppressions  and  moral  delinquen- 
cies of  the  gravest  character.  If,  as  some  modern  wri- 
ters allege,  and  as  many  commercial  men  and  financiers 
believe,  there  is  no  business  that  as  a  general  fact  will 
compete  with  interest  money,  so  that  business  can  safely 
be  carried  on  by  those  who  pay  interest,  and  if  the  prac- 
tice be  closely  connected  with  most  forms  of  pecuniary 
distress  and  oppression— if,  without  intending  it,  the  mo- 
ney lender  commonly  injures  the  money  borrower— if 
there  is  an  inherent  illusion  in  the  transaction  by  which 
the  most  sagacious  are  almost  uniformly  deceived— if 
very  few  who  pay  interest  are  not  ultimately  the  losers 
by  it— then  there  might  be  plausibility  in  the  opinion  of 
some  that  the  prohibition  was  made  on  high  moral 
grounds,  of  general  application,  and  fairly  included  in  the 
function  of  administering  justice  between  a  man  and  his 
neighbor.  On  the  other  hand,  it  is  to  be  observed  that 
the  Hebrew  was  not  prohibited  from  lending  money  on 
interest  to  foreigners,  which  might  seem  to  conflict  with 
the  sentiment  that  the  practice  is  malum  in  se.  The  pre- 
valent belief  is  that  the  transaction  is  often  a  mutual  ben- 


DEMOCRACY  OF  CHKISTIANITV. 


127 


efit  to  the  parties— that  widows  and  orphans  in   the  pes-  ' 
session  of  small  sums  are  benefitted    by    lending    them, 
through  the  operations  of  banking,  to  active    and    enter- 
prising men  of  larger  fortunes,  who  can  well  afford  to  pay- 
interest— and  accordingly  some  maintain  that  the  price  of 
money  should  be  left  to  regulate  itself,  like  that  of  other 
commodities,  by  the  laws  of  supply  and  demand.     What- 
ever view  we  may  take  of  this  matter,  it  cannot  be  doubt- 
ed that  the  tendency  of  the  Hebrew  law  was    to    prevent 
the  accumulation  of  overgrown  estates    and  the   creation 
of  an  aristocracy  of  wealth.     In  this  respect  it  harmonised 
with  the  equal  division  of  land,  and  the  prohibition  of  its 
permanent  transfer.     The  marked  solicitude  of  the   He- 
brew policy  to  prevent  the  extremes  of  wealth  and  pover- 
tjr,    and  to  preserve  as  far  as  practicable   an    equality   of 
possessions  cannot  be  denied,  and  the  radically  democra- 
tic bearing  of  all  this  is  equally  indisputable.    It  is  certainly 
a  remarkable  circumstance  that  the   only    point    wherein 
the  Hebrew  law  seems  to   trench   upon    the    freedom  of 
commercial  intercourse,  is  the  very  point  where  such  un- 
restricted freedom  would  be  most  likely  to  foster  the  lay- 
ing up  of  large  fortunes  and  the  consequent  inequality  of 
property  among  the  people.      The  regulation  reminds  us 
of  the  Spartan  law  of  after  times  for  similar  ends,  accord- 
ing to  the  provisions  of  which  the  currency  of  the  country 
was  restricted  to  the  heavy  and  cheap  metal,  iron.     Such 
laws  present  a  striking  contrast  to  those  modern  schemes 
of  political  economy,  so  called,  in  which  the  principle   of 
free  intercourse  is  infringed  for   the    obvious   and    some- 
times the  avowed  purpose  of  enabling  a  favored  class  of 
capitalists  to  enrich  themselves  at  the  expense  of  the  poor 
laborer. 

The  law  of  usury,  the  laws  of  servitude  in  some  of 
their  aspects,  the  law  of  divorce,  and  some  other  laws, 
may  present  difficulties  which  the  modern  inquirer  may 
not  be  able,  very  readily  or  satisfactorily  to  solve,  and  few 
persons,  if  any,  would  think  it  incumbent  upon  a  modern 


128  DEMOCRACY  OF  CHRISTIANITY. 

commonwealth  to  copy  the  letter  of  some  other  Hebrew 
statutes,  or  even  proper  to  do  so.  We  cannot  know-,  pre- 
cisely, the  state  ot  things  which  these  regulations  were 
designed  to  meet  and  rectify.  But  this  need  not  lead  us  to 
doubt  that  there  were  good  reasons  for  them  at  the  time. 
And  the  fact  that  we  find,  even  in  the  brief  statute  book 
of  the  Hebrews,  some  items  that  at  this  distance  of  time 
we  can  but  imperfectly  understand,  and  which,  according 
to  the  strict  letter  we  cannot  now  apply,  confirms  the  sen- 
timent we  have  already  advanced  concerning  the  superior 
certainty  and  perspicuity  of  Common  Law,  or  the  law  of 
equity,  over  any  written  specific  statutes.  If  even  when 
God  himself  legislates  in  the  form  of  statutory  provisions, 
the  uncertainty  of  human  language,  the  dimness  of  histo- 
rical illustration,  and  other  disadvantages  render  them 
obscure  or  unavailable,  in  the  lapse  of  ages,  or  in  their 
application  to  other  communities,  we  are  impressively 
taught  by  that  fact  what  Paul  notices,  that  "  the  letter 
killeth,  but  the  spirit  giveth  life" — that  servility  to  dead 
forms  and  technicalities  regardless  of  the  spirit  that  ori- 
g-inally  animated  them  is  murderous,  while  nothing  but 
the  living  spirit  of  them  can  restore  life  io  them — and,  of 
course,  that  all  specific  statutes,  however,  whenever,  or 
by  whomsoever  enacted,  are  to  be  read  and  construed  in 
the  light  of  irrepealable,  universal,  transparent  Common 
Law. 

And  if  Divine  Wisdom  is  thus  sparing  of  specific  stat 
utes,  and  thus  careful  to  guard  against  the  misapplication 
of  them,  by  giving  them  as  illustrations  of  universal  law, 
enthroning  that  as  the  exponent  of  all  statutes,  (as  Christ 
teaches  when  speaking  of  David's  eating  the  shew  bread 
Math.  xii.  4.)  in  what  terms  shall  we  speak  of  the  pre- 
sumptuous, the  reckless,  the  interminable  multiplication 
of  man-made  statutes,  the  fruits  and  the  implements  of 
selfish  partizan  strifel  And  what  shall  we  say  of  the  ex- 
altation of  these  as  paramount,  in  Courts  of  Justice,  over 
the  well-known  and  admitted  dictates  of  Natural  Right  ? 


DEMOCRACY     Ol'    CIIUISTIANITr.  129 

In  what  way  could  man  place  himself  move  conspicuously 
in  the  place  of  God,  showing  himself  to  be  God,  and  ex- 
alting himself  above  all  that  is  called  God  and  is  worship- 
ped ?  Or  in  what  way  could  the  liberties  and  rights  of 
a  people  be  more  effectually  trampled  in  the  dusti  If  man 
would  be  free  from  the  tyranny  of  man,  he  must  abase  him- 
self and  exalt  God,  as  he  cannot  do  while  placing  his 
own  parchments  in  the  place  of  Equity  and  Justice,  the 
pillars  of  God's  throne. 

ALIEN  LAWS. 

The  Hebrew  laws  respecting  strangers  are  so  remarkable 
and  are  so  earnestly  and  variously  urged,  that  we  deem  it  no 
vain  repetition  to  copy  them  as  we  find  them,  that  the 
reader  may  be  duly  impressed  with  them,  as  God  intend- 
ed the  Hebrews  should  be  : 

"  One  law  shall  be  to  him  that  is  home  born,  and  unto 
the  stranger  that  sojourneth  among  you." — Ex.  xii.  49. 

"  Thou  shalt  not  vex  a  stranger,  nor  oppress  him,  lor  ye 
were  strangers  in  the  land  of  Egypt." — Ex.  xxii.  21. 

"  Also  thou  shalt  not  oppress  a  stranger,  for  ye  know 
the  heart  of  a  stranger,  seeing  ye  were  strangers  in  the 
land  of  Egypt." — Ex.  xxiii.  9. 

"And  if  a  stranger  sojourn  with  thee  in  your  land,  ye 
shall  not  vex  him  ;  but  the  stranger  that  dwelleth  with 
you  shall  be  unto  you  as  one  born  amongst  you,  and  thou 
shalt  love  him  as  thyself,  for  ye  were  strangers  in  the 
land  of  Egypt.  I  am  the  Lord  your  God." — Lev.  xix. 
33,  34.      • 

"  Ye  shall  have  one  manner  of  law  as  well  for  the  stran- 
ger as  for  one  of  your  own  country  j  for  I  am  the  Lord 
your  God." — Lev.  xxiv.  22. 

"  One  ordinance  shall  be  both  for  you  of  the  congrega- 
tion, and  also  for  the  stranger  that  sojourneth  with  you, 
an  ordinance  forever  in  your  generations  ;  as  ye  are,  so 
shall  the  stranger  be  before  the  Lord.  One  law  and  one 
manner  shall  be  for  you,  and  for  the  stranger  that  sojourn- 
eth with  you." — J\umh.  xv.  15,  16 

"For  the  Lord  your  God  is  a  God  of  gods,  and  Lord  ot 
lords,  a  great  God,  a  mighty  and  a  terrible,  which  regar- 
deth  not  persons,  nor  taketh    reward.     He  doth  execute 


130  DEMOCRACY  OF  CIIRISTIANTTT 

the  judgment  of  the  fatherless  and  widow,  and  Joveth  the 
stranger  in  giving  him  food  and  raiment.  Love  ye  there- 
fore the  stranger,  for  ye  were  strangers  in  the  land  of 
Egypt. — Deut.  x.  17-19. 

"  And  this  shall  be  a  statute  forever       *  *  * 

whether  it  be  one  of  your  own  country,  or  a  stranger  that 
sojourneth  among  you." — Lev.  xvi.  29. 

These  laws  are  the  more  remarkable  as  having  been 
enacted  for  a  "  peculiar"  people,  separated  from  all  the 
nations  of  the  earth  and  distinguished  by  special  privi- 
leges from  every  other  people.  For  this  very  reason, 
perhaps,  the  greater  care  was  taken  to  guard  them  against 
national  pride.  To  the  same  end  they  were  frequently 
reminded  that  they  were  not  thus  distinguished  on  ac- 
count of  their  superior  goodness,  but  on  account  of  the 
divine  purpose  revealed  to  Abraham,  and  for  the  ultimate 
benefit  of  all  the  families  of  the  earth.  (See  Deut.  ix.  48, 
&c.)  The  bond  of  universal  human  brotherhood  they 
were  to  cherish  as  most  sacred,  and  not  exait  themselves 
above  any  portion  of  their  fellow  men.  What  a  contrast 
to  the  cherished  pride,  misanthropy,  and  arrogance  that 
enter  into  the  ideas  of  patriotism  and  national  glory,  so 
much  admired,  but  so  fatally  subversive  of  the  principles 
of  human  equality  and  freedom  ! 

THE  DIVISION  AND  THE  TENURE  OF  LANDS BANKRUPTCY,  AND 

LIMITATION    OF     COLLECTION     OF     DEBTS MORTGAGES,     SE- 
CURITIES,   <tC. 

These  topics  are  so  closely  connected  together  in  the 
Hebrew  polity,  that  we  group  them  together  for  the  bet- 
ter understanding  of  them. 

The  mischiefs  of  the  monopoly  of  the  soil,  so  aflecting- 
ly  manifest  in  Egypt,  and  so  closely  connected  with  the 
bondage  and  oppression  of  the  Hebrews  in  that  countrj^, 
were  to  be  guarded  against  in  the  most  effectual  manner, 
in  the  new  commonwealth  they  are  to  constitute.  The 
equal  division  of  lands,  in  the  first  place,  and  the  preven- 
tion of  their  permanent  alienation,  afterwards,  became 
prominent  features  of  their  system. 


DEMOCRACY  OF  CHRISTIANITY.  131 

Tn  the  twenty-sixth  chapter  of  Numbers  we  have  an 
enumeration  of  the  people  of  the  several  tribes,  by  their 
families,  preparatory  to  the  division  of  the  land  among 
them. 

"  Unto  these  shall  the  land  be  divided  for  an  inherit- 
ance according  to  the  number  of  names.  To  many  thou 
shalt  give  the  more  inheritance,  and  to  few  thou  shalt 
give  the  less  inheritance,  to  every  one  shall  his  inherit- 
ance be  given,  according  to  those  that  were  numbered  of 
him."— V.  53-54. 

The  same  is  substantially  repeated,  chapter  xxxiii.  54. 
In  chapter  xxxv.  v.  8,  are  directions  for  a  division  of 
cities.  In  the  book  of  Joshua,  commencing  with  the  thir- 
teenth chapter,  we  have  some  account  of  these  divisions. 

The  law  of  the  Jubilee  is  given  in  the  twenty-fifth  chap- 
ter of  Leviticus. 

"  And  ye  shall  hallow  the  fiftieth  year  and  proclaim 
liberty  throughout  the  land  unto  the  inhabitants  thereof; 
it  shall  be  a  jubilee  unto  you,  and  ye  shall  return  every 
man  unto  his  possession,  and  ye  shall  return  every  man 
unto  his  family." — v.  10. 

The  man  may  have  sold  himself  or  his  children  into  ser- 
vice for  the  payment  of  his  debts,  or  for  the  supply  of  his 
family  necessities  (for  such  was  the  selling  of  men  at  that 
period)  or  he  may  have  sold,  rented  or  mortgaged  his 
farm  for  similar  causes,  but  the  trumpet  of  jubilee  termi- 
nated at  once  the  sale,  the  service,  the  lease  ;  every  man's 
debt  was  discharged,  the  bond-servant  was  released,  and  his 
property  restored  to  him  again.  Beyond  the  jubilee  the 
contract  could  not  be  binding,  the  demand  could  not  be 
urged.  What  the  creditor  could  receive  previous  to  the 
jubilee,  more  or  less,  according  to  the  term  of  possession 
or  of  service,  (and  within  the  amount  of  his  demand,)  he 
could  thus  collect,  in  the  service  or  the  use  of  the  proper- 
ty, but  this  must  suffice  him,  for  the  balance,  whatever  it 
might  be,  was  released  in  the  jubilee.  The  principle  at 
the  bottom  of  this  tenure  of  land,  is  thus  stated  : 

<'  The  land   shall  not  be  sold  forever,  for  the  land  is 


132  DEMOCRACY    OF    CHRISTIANITY. 

mine  (i.  e.  Jehovah's)  for  ye  are  strangers  and  sojourners 
with  me." 

The  absolute  right  of  proprietorship  in  land,  was  thus 
explicitly  denied  to  the  Hebrew,  and  he  was  declared  a 
tenant  to  his  Creator. 

Additional  provision  was  made  for  the  redemption  of 
alienated  land,  before  the  recurrence  of  the  Jubilee  if  the 
person  who  had  transferred  it,  or  any  of  his  kinsmen,  were 
able  to  redeem  it.  (y.  23-28.)  Houses  within  walled 
cities,  if  not  redeemed  within  a  year  after  they  were  sold, 
were  confirmed  to  the  purchaser,  and  were  not  to  go  out 
in  the  Jubilee,     (v.  29-30.) 

"  And  if  thou  sell  aught  unto  thy  neighbor,  or  buyest 
aught  of  thy  neighbor's  hand,  ye  shall  not  oppress  one  an- 
other. According  to  the  number  of  years  after  the  jubi- 
lee shalt  thou  buy  of  thy  neighbor,  and  according  to  the 
number  of  years  of  the  fruits  shall  he  sell  unto  thee.  Ac- 
cording to  the  multitude  of  years  shalt  thou  increase  the 
price  thereof,  and  according  to  the  fewness  of  years  shalt 
thou  diminish  the  price  of  it,  for  according  to  the  number 
of  the  years  of  the  fruits  doth  he  sell  unto  thee.  Ye  shall 
not  oppress  one  another,  but  thou  shalt  fear  thy  God." — 
V.  14-17. 

"  Thus  it  was  provided  that  the  lands  should  not  be 
alienated  from  the  families  to  which  they  were  assigned 
by  lot,  for  they  could  only  be  disposed  of,  by  leases,  at  a 
proportionable  price,  until  the  year  of  jubilee,  and  then 
must  return  either  to  the  seller,  if  living,  or  to  his  next 
heir.  This  tended  to  preserve  the  tribes  and  families  of 
Israel,  and  consequently  their  genealogies  distinct,  until 
the  coming  of  the  Messiah.  It  would  also  prevent  the 
amassing  of  exorbitant  wealth  by  some,  and  the  extreme 
poverty  of  others,  promote  a  brotherly  equality  among 
them,  and  remind  them  not  to  oppress  their  brethren." — 
Scotfs  Commentanj. 

Besides  the  fiftieth  year  in  which  the /«;?(/ was  released, 
there  was  also  a  similar  release  every  seventh  year,  in 
which  every  thing  was  released  except  the  leased  land. 

«' At  the  end  of  every  seventh  year  thou  shalt  make  a 
release.  And  this  is  the  manner  of  the  release.  Every 
creditor  that  lendeth  aught  unto  his  neighbor  shall  release 


DEMOCRACV  OF    CHRISTIANITY.  133 

it,  he  shall  not  exact  it  of  his  neighbor,  ov  of  his  brother, 
because  it  is  called  the  Lord's  release.  Of  a  foreigner 
thou  mayest  exact  it  again,  but  that  which  is  thine,  with 
thy  brother,  thy  hand  shall  release  ;  save  when  there 
shall  be  no  poor  among  you,"  &c. — Deut,  xv.  1-4. 

"  And  if  thy  brother,  an  Hebrew  man,  or  an  Hebrew 
woman  be  sold  unto  thee,  and  serve  thee  six  years,  then 
in  the  seventh  year  thou  shalt  let  him  go  free  from  thee. 
And  when  thou  sendesthim  out  free  from  thee,  thou  shalt 
not  let  him  go  away  empty,"  &c. — v.  12-13. 

The  law  of  pledges  or  deposits  in  security  for  debt,  is 
thus  stated : 

"  If  thou  at  all  take  thy  neighbor's  raiment  to  pledge, 
thou  shalt  deliver  it  to  him  by  that  the  sun  goeth  down; 
for  that  is  his  covering  only,  it  is  his  raiment  for  his 
skin.  Wherein  shall  he  sleep  1  And  it  shall  come  to  pass 
when  he  crieth  to  me  that  I  will  hear,  for  1  am  gracious." 
—Ex.  xxii.  26-27. 

"  No  man  shall  take  the  nether  or  the  upper  mill  stone 
to  pledge,  for  he  hath  taken  a  man's  life  to  pledge.  *  * 
When  thou  dost  lend  thy  brother  anything,  thou  shalt 
not  go  into  his  house  to  fetch  his  pledge.  Thou  shalt 
stand  abroad,  and  the  man  to  whom  thou  dost  lend  bhall 
bring  out  the  pledge  abroad  unto  thee.  And  if  the  man 
be  poor,  thou  shalt  not  sleep  with  his  pledge.  In  any 
case  thou  shalt  deliver  him  the  pledge  again  when  the 
sun  goeth  down,  that  he  may  sleep  in  his  own  raiment 
and  bless  thee;  and  it  shall  be  righteousness  unto  thee 
before  the  Lord  thy  God." — Deut.  xxiv.  6-13. 

This  does  not  seem  to  favor  the  practice  of  entermg  a 
man's  dwelling  to  make  forcible  seizures  for  debt.  The 
giving  of  the  pledge  must  be  voluntary,  and  care  was  to 
be  taken  to  avoid  even  the  appearance  of  force,  or  con- 
straint, or  anything  like  roughness,  eagerness,  indecorum, 
disrespect  or  impoliteness  towards  the  family.  What  a 
contrast  to  scenes  often  witnessed  in  the  midst  of  our  ad- 
vanced civilization  ! 

Perhaps,  however,  these  paragraphs  may  be  regarded 
as  divine  admonitions  and  warnings,  touching  a  matter  of 
conscience  towards  God,  rather  than  as  judicial  regula- 
tions for   the  enforcement  of  the   magistrate.     In  either 

7 


134  DEMOCRACY    OF    CHRISTIANITY. 

case,  coming  from  the  divine  Lawgiver,  tiiey  illustrate  the 
principle   and   exemplify   the  spirit  of   the  Hebrew  code. 
Thus  construed,  the  statutes  or  the  admonitions,  call  them 
which  we  please,  embrace  a  scope  of  application  beyond 
the  mere  technicalities  or  specifications  employed.    They 
manifestly  forbid  the  seizure  of  anything  for  debt,  the  loss 
of  which  would  essentially  distress  the  debtor.     And  since 
civil  government,  or    the  magistrate,   acting  in  the  name 
and  on  behalf  of  the  community,  is  under  the  same  moral 
obligation  with   private   individuals,   it  follows   that  the 
civil  power  is  not  to  be  wielded  for  assisting  in  such  bar- 
barous  collections   of   debts,    especially    in  the   forcible 
thrusting  of  poor  families  out  of  their  homes,  and  sendmg 
them,    shelterless,   into  the  streets.     Yo^^^  wherein  shall 
they  sleep  ?"     The  alienation  of  the  houses  and  lands,  re- 
leased in  the  jubilee,  is  assumed  to  have  been  the   volun- 
tary   act   of  the  owners,  not  by  the  arm  of  violence,  and 
that  too,  of  the  state.     And  even  that  voluntary  alienation 
was  not'to  be  perpetual.     Here,  again,  as  in  other  partic- 
ulars, our  modern  democracies,  even  the  most  democratic 
of  the  American  states,  are  less  democratic  than  the   He- 
brew commonwealth. 

PAUPERISM POOR    LA^V^S. 

With  such  ample  protection  of  the   rights  of   the  poor, 
with  such  a  cheap  judiciary  system,  so  easy  of  access,  so 
exclusively  founded  on  the  law  of  equity,  with  an  equal 
distribution  of  the   land,   with  such   laws  against  its  per- 
manent alienation,  with  such  a  law   of   limitation  of   col- 
lection of  debts,  (the  seven  years^  release)  with  the   pro- 
hibition  of   usury,  (the  terror  of  debtors,)  in  the  absence 
of   chartered   monopolies,    commercial  restrictions,  &;c., 
with  such  provision  for  the  compensation  of  liberated  ser- 
vants, and  other  advantages  that  might  be  mentioned,    it 
might  perhaps  be  supposed   that  there    could  be  nothing 
like  a  very    unequal  distribution  of  property  among  the 
Hebrews,  that  there  could  be  none  exorbitantly  rich,  and 
none  very  miserably  poor,  so  that  no  further  regulations 


DEMOCRACY  OF  CHRISTIANITY.  135 

or  even  admonitions  would  be  necessary  in  that  direction. 
And  certninly  a  community  placed  under  the  provisions 
of  the  Hebrew  code  and  conforming  in  their  tempers  and 
habits  to  the  spirit  of  such  institutions  would  present  a 
sublime  spectacle,  and  one  that  might  be  expected  to  dif- 
fer widely  from  any  now  known  under  the  sun.  It  would 
be  worth  a  voyage  to  the  antipodes  of  our  earth,  to  look 
upon  such  a  people.  And  it  is  very  natural  to  suppose 
that  such  institutions  would  have  an  equalizing  effect 
upon  any  communitj,  even  the  mostuntractable  and  stub- 
born, beyond  anything  now  witnessed  among  men. 

Perhaps  these  considerations  may  in  part  account  ^or 
the  absence,  in  the  Hebrew  code,  of  any  such  imposing 
and  complicated  system  of  pauper  laws,  as  encumber  our 
modern  statute  books.  The  divine  plan  gave  more  prom- 
inence to  prevention^  and  had  less  occasion  to  occupy  it- 
self, laboriously,  with  amelioration,  ft  created  no  over- 
shadowing divinity,  in  the  place  of  God,  (but  not  doing 
God's  work)  called  a  national  government  over  the  people, 
distinct  from  them,  affecting  paternal  superintendence  of 
all  their  activities,  as  though  they  were  minors,  and  under 
this  pretense  preying  upon  them  like  a  hungry  vulture, 
grinding  them  into  the  depths  of  poverty,  inflicting  murder- 
ous injustice  upon  them  instead  of  protecting  them  from  it 
and  then,  instead  of  ceasing  its  injustice,  making  a  pa- 
rade of  doling  out  to  them,  in  stinted  measures,  as  gra- 
cious  benefactions,  a  portion  of  the  exorbitant  exactions 
unrighteously  wrung  out  of  them,  and  eating  up  the  moiety 
even  of  this  in  the  creation  of  new  sinecures  under  cover 
of  superintending  and  disbursing  it,  thus  levying  addi- 
tional exactions  o^^  the  poor,  under  pretense  of  r€//efzV?.o- 
the  poor,  and  then  boasting  in  the  monument  of  their 
shame  and  wickedness. 

The  divine  Legislator  of  the  Hebrews,  the  All-uise 
Founder  of  their  democratic  commonwealth,  did  not  how- 
ever overlook  the  poor,  nor  would  He  have  it  taken  for  gran- 
ted that  tlie  operations  of  a  righteous  civil  government,  in 


lie 


DEMOORAOY  OF  CHRISTIANITY. 


the  protection  of  the  laborer,  would  of  necessity  or  as  a 
matter  of  fact  prevent  the  inroads  of  poverty.  Nor  would 
He  have  the  people  forget  that  "  that  the  race  is  not  to  the 
swift,  nor  the  battle  to  the  strong,  nor  riches  to  men  of 
understanding,"  and  thus  excuse  themselves  from  their 
duties  to  the  poor. 

''And  when  ye  reap  the  harvest  of  your  land,  thou 
shalt  not  wholly  reap  the  corners  of  thy  field,  neith- 
er shalt  thou  gather  the  gleanings  of  thy  harvest.  And 
thou  shalt  not  glean  thy  vineyard,  neither  shalt  thou 
gather  every  grape  of  thy  vineyard  3  thou  shalt  leave  them 
for  the  poor  and  stranger:  I  am  the  Lord  your  God." — Lev. 
xix.  9. 

"  And  if  thy  brother  be  waxen  poor,  and  fallen  in  decay 
with  thee,  then  thou  shalt  relieve  him,  yea,  though  he  be 
a  stranger  and  a  sojourner,  that  he  may  live  with  thee." 
— Lev.  XXV.  35. 

Foreseeing  that  even  the  merciful  law  of  the  year  of  re- 
lease might  be  abused,  that  the  letter  of  it  might  be  obey- 
ed while  its  spirit  might  be  disregarded,  that  the  specific 
statute  might  be  exalted  above  the  Common  Law  of  equity 
and  mercy  it  was  designed  to  illustrate,  and  even  made  the 
occasion  and  pretext  for  its  violation,  the  divine  Lawgiv- 
er, by  the  lips  and  the  pen  of  Moses^  tov/ards  the  close  of 
his  life,  interposed  an  additional  barrier  against  any  per- 
version. 

"  If  there  be  among  you  a  poor  man  of  one  of  thy  breth- 
ren, within  any  of  thy  gates  in  thy  land  which  the  Lord 
thy  God  giveth  thee,  thou  shalt  not  harden  thine  heart, 
nor  shut  thine  eye  from  thy  poor  brother,  but  thou  shalt 
open  thine  hand  wide  unto  him,  and  thou  shalt  surely  lend 
him  sufficient  for  his  need,  in  that  which  he  wantcth. 
Beware  that  there  be  not  a  thought  in  thy  wicked  heart, 
saying,  the  seventh  year,  the  year  of  release  is  at  hand, 
and  thine  eye  be  evil  against  thy  poor  brother,  and  thou 
givest  him  naught,  and  he  cry  unto  theLord  against  thee, 
and  it  be  sin  unto  thee.  Thou  shalt  surely  give  him,  and 
thine  heart  shall  not  be  grieved  when  thou  givest  him, 
because  that  for  this  thing  the  Lord  thy  God  shall  bless 
thee  in  all  thy  works,  in  all  that  thou  puttest  thine  hand 
rinto.     For  the  poor  slinll   never  cease  out  of  the  land, 


DKMOO'RAUY    OF  OHRiyTlAiMTY.  137 

therefore  1  command  thee,  saying,  Thou  shalt  open  thine 
hand,  wide,  unto  thy  brother,  to  thy  poor,  and  to  thy 
needy,  in  thy  land." — Deut.  xv.  7-11. 

We  do  not  say  that  this  statute  was  committed  to  the 
magistrate  for  his  administration.  It  evidently  lies  be- 
yond the  confines  of  his  jurisdiction — another  illustration 
of  the  narrowness  of  the  field  covered  by  civil  government 
and  of  the  folly  of  looking  to  zV,  either  to  give  men  honest 
and  humane  hearts,  or  to  provide  any  adequate  substitutes 
for  such  hearts.  We  admit  that  these  precepts  lie  be- 
yond the  precincts  of  the  civil  code,  but  we  cite  them 
here,  that  they  may  be  contrasted  with  the  pauper  laws 
of  our  modern  Christendom,  in  their  spirit,  scope,  and  de- 
sign. Modern  legislation,  instead  of  protecting  the  poor 
from  oppression  is  chiefly  or  at  least  constantly  occupied 
in  assisting  oppressors  to  do  their  work  the  more  ef- 
fectually, nay,  in  playing  the  oppressor  itself.  Then, 
it  pretends  to  provide  for  the  poor !  The  Lawgiver  of  the 
Hebrews,  on  the  other  hand,  first  guards  the  poor  from  op- 
pression, takes  all  justifiable  and  feasible  measures  for 
preventing  poverty,  and  removing  its  causes  and  occa- 
sions, and  then,  foreseeing  the  fact  of  remaining  poverty 
in  time  to  come,  commits  the  holy  duty  of  relieving  pov- 
erty, to  the  people.  The  modern  method  removes  the 
poor  from  the  sacred  endearments  of  home,  and  pens  them 
up  by  themselves,  like  mere  animals,  out  of  the  sight  of 
their  former  neighbors,  who  should  associate  and  sympa- 
thize with  them,  making  alms-giving  the  monopoly  of  the 
state  and  its  pensioned  officials,  instead  of  the  heart-soft- 
ening and  civilized  privilege  of  individuals  and  families. 
The  modern  method  relaxes  the  bonds  of  human  brother- 
hood and  crests  castes.  The  div  ne  method  enjoined  on 
the  Hebrews,  enforces  and  gives  vitality  to  that  brother- 
hood, and  provides  in  the  cherished  presence  and  frater- 
nity of  the  poorer  members  of  the  human  family,  a  most 
powerful  antidote  to  the  spirit  of  caste.  Under  the  mod- 
ern polity,  children  or  parents,  brothers  or  sisters,  living 


138  DEMOCRACY  OF  CHKlSTlANlTY. 

in  comfort,  perhaps  in  luxury  and  ostentation,  rid  them- 
selves, gladly,  of  the  humiliating  presence  of  their  poor 
parents,  children,  brothers  and  sisters,  by  committing 
them  to  the  poor  house!  The  Hebrew  polity  required  of 
the  entire  community,  a  loving  and  respectful  fraternity 
and  co-residence  ndth  the  poorest  members  of  the  same 
great  family,  as  honored  fathers,  as  beloved  children,  as 
cherished  sisters  and  brothers.  The  one  method  puts  the  . 
poor  under  overseers— the  other  leaves  them  at  liberty, 
and  in  the  exercise  of  a  manly  and  invigorating  self-direc- 
tion. The  one  creates  an  expensive  horde  of  officials  to 
do  what  in  the  other  sj^stem  is  done  gratuitouslj'  by  the 
community.  The  one  makes  the  support  of  the  poor  a 
compulsory  and  hated  tax,  that  even  the  pious  pay  with 
contortions  of  visage,  the  other  identifies  charity  with  re- 
ligion, and  invites  even  the  churl  to  become  bountiful. 
The  one  is  the  out-gushing  breath  of  humanity  and  the 
teacher  of  democracy  ;  the  other  is  the  offspring  of  a  cold, 
calculating  expediency,  the  conservator  of  misanthropy 
and  aristocratic  pride. 

There  is  a  further  lesson  in  these  divine  directions. 
They  teach  us  better  than  to  say,  in  our  prosperity,  as 
we  are  prone  to  do,  that  there  is  no  poverty  that  needs 
relief  or  that  deserves  to  be  relieved — that  alms-giving  is 
a  bounty  upon  idleness — that  none  need  to  be  poor  or 
would  be  unless  vicious — that  the  poor  are  injured  by 
being  assisted — that  the  only  way  to  help  them  is  to  re- 
form their  characters  and  throw  them  entirely  on  their 
own  resources — or,  on  the  other  hand,  that  civil  govern- 
ment is  responsible  for  all  the  pauperism  and  nothing 
ought  to  be  attempted  for  the  poor  except  a  political  re- 
formation— pleas  under  which  so  many  are  seeking  to  ex- 
cuse themselves  from  giving  anything  to  the  poor.  What- 
ever occasions  there  may  be  for  any  or  for  all  of  the  alle- 
gations upon  which  these  pleas  are  founded,  God  under- 
stood them  all  when  he  gave  the  directions  we  have  cited, 
and  he  understood  the   fallacy  of  the  excuses  founded 


DE.MOCKACY    OF    CUlUSTlAiNlTY.  1^^^ 

«pon  them.  He  kne^v  that  the  civil  institutions  he  had 
provided  for  the  Hebrews  would  not  be  fully  adnimister- 
ed  as  they  ought  to  be,  and  that  even  if  they  were,  they 
could  not  remove  all  the  natural  causes  of  poverty  and 
want.  He  knew  all  the  various  ways  in  which  men  in 
prosperity  arc  prone  to  "  harden  their  hearts  and  shut 
their  eyes  against  their  poor  brethren,"  and  therefore  he 
interposed  his  solemn  interdict  of  them  all,  declaring  that 
the  poor  would  never  cease  out  of  the  land,  nor  occasions 
be  wanted  for  relieving  them.  Christ  repeated  the  same 
in  his  day:-" The  poor  ye  always  have  with  y^"'^"^ 
whensoever  ye  will  ye  may  do  them  good.  And  the 
proper  occasions  of  alms-giving  are  not  less  now  than 
under  the  institutions  of  Moses.  They  can  hardly  fail  to 
be  much  greater,  until  something  like  the  equalizing  pol- 
ity of  the  Hebrew  commonwealth  can  be  restored. 


CHAPTER  XI. 

O?  THE  BEARING  OF  THE    MOSAIC    INSTITUTIONS    UPON    MONAR- 
CHICAL    ARRANGEMENTS, 

The  radically  democratic  character  of  the  Hebrew  institu- 
tions  and  laws,  so  far  as  we  have  now  considered  ihem,would 
seem  to  interpose  an  insuperable  barrier  to  their  success- 
ful  and  harmonious  incorporation  into  any  thing  like  the  ar- 
rangementsandusagesofanordinarymonarchy.  Thestruc- 
ture  of  the  go  vernment,  as  thus  far  described,  was  evidently 
that  of  a  commonwealth,  a  brotherhood  of  equals,  bound  to- 
gether by  the  tie.s  of  a  common  ancestry,  the  members  of 
the  community  each  claiming  and  enjoying  equal  rights, 
the  soil  equally  divided  between  them,  measures  taken  to 
preserve  that  equality  of  distribution,  inequality  of  posses- 


14*0  JJEMOCRACY  OF   CHKISTIAWIT V, 

sions  as  much  as  possible  discouraged,  courts  of  justice 
organized  by  vote  of  the  people,  the  judges  for  the  most 
part  elected  by  them,  the  most  important  class  of  causes 
adjudicated  by  popular  assemblies  of  the  people  them- 
selves. How  could  a  monarchy  originate  among  such  a 
people,  while  retaining  the  spirit  of  their  institutions! 
How  would  a  monarchy  assimulate  itself  to  them,  or  live  in 
the  presence  of  such  arrangements  1  What  work  would 
there  be  for  the  monarch  to  do  1  Or  how  could  these 
democratic  arrangements  be  continued  under  the  shadow 
of  a  kingly  dynasty  1 

Such  are  some  of  the  questions  that  naturally  present 
themselves.  We  will  next  inquire  after  the  facts.  And 
here  the  most  careless  reader  of  the  Bible  will  anticipate 
the  most  significant  blank  in  the  history.  The  man  who 
has  only  read  the  Old  Testament,  once,  in  his  boyhoood, 
retains  enough  of  it  not  to  miss  the  remembrance  of  any 
king,  designated  as  such,  at  this  period  of  the  Hebrew 
history,  when  the  commonwealth  was  organized  and  set 
in  operation.  He  remembers  that  Saul  was  the  first  mon- 
arch named  in  the  Chronicles  of  the  Kings  of  Israel,  many 
generations  afterwards.  The  reader  of  the  New  Testa- 
learns  from  Paul  that  God  "  gave  them  judges  about  the 
space  of  four  hundred  and  fifty  years  until  Samuel,  the  pro- 
phet, aiid  afferivard  they  desired  a  king.'''' — Acts  xiii.  20,  21, 

Moses  never  claimed  kingly  honors,  never  exercised  the 
ordinary  prerogatives  of  royalty,  never  received  the  per- 
quisites of  a  king,  was  never  proclaimed  king,  was  never 
called  a  king,  either  by  the  people  of  his  times,  by 
those  of  subsequent  ages,  or  by  any  of  the  inspired  writers. 
Kings  issue  their  own  discretionary  decrees  ;  Moses  de- 
livered God's  special  messages,  and  left  the  appointment 
of  a  judiciary  with  the  people.  "  Moses  verily  was  faith- 
ful in  all  his  house,  as  a  servant^  *  ^'  but  Christ  [the 
anointed  king  of  Israel]  as  a  Son  over  his  own  house." — 
Heh.  iii.  6. 

And  Moses,  as  before  shown,  exercised    no   legislative 


Democracv  uf  Christianity.  141 

power,  of  himself,  and  left  no  successor,  as  the  medium  of 
communicating  a  code  for  the  Hebrews.  As  Moses  was 
not  a  king,  still  less  was  Joshua  whose  post  was  a  subor- 
indinate  and  inferior  one.  The  Book  of  the  Judges  tesfi- 
fies  that  "  in  those  days  there  was  no  king  in  Israel." — 
xviii.  1.  also  xxi.  25. 

We  have  before  shown  that  the  institutions  of  Moses 
made  no  provision  for  ^ny  legislative  body,  nor  for  the 
exercise  of  any  legislative  power,  nay,  more,  that  they 
admitted  of  none.  Had  a  king  been  provided  for  in  those 
institutions,  he  must  have  lacked  the  kingly  prerogative 
of  legislative  power.  But  no  such  provision  was  made, 
except  prophetically,  prospectively,  or  conditionally,  as 
will  presently  be  shown.  And  the  establishment  of  the 
monarchy,  when  it  took  place,  was  the  rebellious  subver- 
sion of  the  commonwealth  instituted  by  the  hand  of  Moses, 
as  will  be  made  to  appear. 

To  all  this  we  must  here  add  that  there  was  provided 
no  central  Chief  Magistracy,  no  grand  national  executive 
under  any  name,  no  President,  no  Governor,  with  execu- 
tive patronage,  with  or  without  the  veto  power,  (as  there 
was  no  legislative  power  to  be  vetoed)  no  Senate,  no  Coun- 
cil, no  Cabinet,  no  war  or  Navy  Departments,  no  Secretary 
of  the  Treasury,  no  Secretary  of  State,  no  Minister  of  the 
Interior,  or  of  Foreign  Relations. 

We  are  not  denouncing  all  such  arrangements  ;  we  are 
only  stating  historical  facts.  That  they  may  be  conven- 
ient in  some  communities,  that  they  may  be  useful,  that 
they  may  be  allowable,  we  undertake  not  here  to  debate. 
Those  are  not  the  points  now  in  hand.  VVc  simply  insist 
upon  holding  up  to  view  the  divinely  inspired  record  of 
the  veritable  realities  that  have  already  existed,  th?  events 
that  have  already  taken  place  in  this  government-bestrid- 
den planet  of  ours,  and  we  invite  the  attention  of  Chris- 
tians who  have  Bibles,  and  who:7e  religious  teachers  com- 
mend (as  they  should)  the  study  of  them.  It  is  not  from 
the  Utopia  of  Sir  Thomas  Moore,  that  we  are  now   addu- 


142 


DEMOCRACY  Ob'  UHHISTIANITY. 


cing  examples  or  citing-  precedents.  We  hold  up  the 
books  of  Moses,  and  affirm  on  their  autherity  and  credi- 
bility that  when  Infinite  Wisdom  condescended  to  provide 
civil  institutions  for  the  Hebrews,  such  offices  as  Kings, 
Emperors,  Grand  Dukes,  Lord  Protectors,  Presdents, 
Governors,  in  the  modern  acceptation  of  the  terms,  with 
the  supposed  dignities,  prerogatives,  functions,  powers, 
rights,  and  duties  appertaining  to  them,  did  not  enter  at 
aW  into  His  pla?i.  He  gave  them  simply  the  democratic 
judiciary,  the  civil  code,  the  Common  Law  already  descri- 
bed, and  there,  so  far  as  civil  govermnentis  concerned,  He 
completed  His  plan,  He  terminated  His  directions.  He 
rested  from  His  work,  as  He  did  from  the  work  of  crea- 
tion, pronouncing  it  very  good,  (See  Deut.  iv.  5-11)  and 
commanding  those  who  came  afterwards  upon  the  stage 
of  action,  to  preserve  it  inviolate  (See  Joshua  i.  7,  8.) 
This  He  thought  sufficient  for  the  Hebrews — this  He  con- 
sidered them  competent,  if  they  cherished  the  spirit  of 
obedience,  to  administer — this  He  committed  to  their 
administration,  assuring  them,  in  the  paragraphs  just 
now  alluded  to,  that  if  they  would  only  do  this  all 
would  be  well,  the  community  would  prosper,  and  the  sur- 
rounding nations,  would  admiringly  say  of  them,  "  Surely 
this  nation  is  a  wise  and  an  understanding  people." 

Whether  God  now  considers  the  Anglo-Saxon  nations, 
under  the  light  of  the  gospel,  the  descendants  of  the  Celts, 
the  Gauls,  the  Franks,  the  Germans,  to  be  competent  to 
so  sublime  an  experiment  in  the  sciences  of  political  mo- 
rality, jurisprudence,  and  self-government,  is  a  grave 
question  for  the  diligent  consideration  of  whom  it 
may  concern.  In  this  matter  we  Avould  not  dogmatize — 
we  are  bringing  forward /rtc/5  that  they  may  be  pondered. 

The  facts  to  which  wc  here  invite  attention  would  re- 
main facts,  and  lose  little  or  nothing  of  their  importance 
and  significancy,  if  it  could  be  made  to  appear  that  the 
institutions  of  Moses  never  went  into  operation  at  all,  or 
that  they  became  a  dead  letter  after  his  death  or  after  the 


btlviOCRACY   OF  CHRISTIANITY.  U3 

death  of  Joshua,  so  that  the  people  derived  from  them  very 
little  benefit,  or  that  they  were  subverted  entirely,  ^  and 
totally  opposite  institutions  introduced  in  their  stead,  or 
that  portions  of  tlie  Mosaic  institutions  and  laws  were 
preserved  intermingled  with  other  institutions,  and  were 
thus  corrupted  or  modified  by  them.  In  all  those  suppo- 
sed  cases  the  divine  Wisdom  of  the  institutions  of  Moses 
would  not  have  been  disproved  by  the  neglect  or  refusal 
of  foolish  men  to  preserve  and  administer  them. 

Superficial  persons  often  deceive  themselves  and  keep 
each  other  in  countenance  in  their  adherence  to  mis- 
chievous arrangements  by  representing  that  nothing  else 
is  found  practicable— that  arrangements  of  an  opposite 
character,  however  scientifically  devised  and  earnestly 
commended,  have  had  their  day,  and  have  proved  to  be 
failures— when  after  all,  a  little  attention  to  the  real  facts 
of  the  case  would  show,  not  that  the  proposed  arrange- 
ments had  proved  a  failure,  but  that  all  attempts  to  modify  or 
change  them,  to  dispense  with  them,  or  find  out  substitutes 
for  them,  had  proved  failures  ! 

Suppose  the  successors  of  Robert  Fulton  instead  of  con- 
structing steamboats  upon  the  principle  he  discovered  and 
recommended,  had  failed  after  his  death,  to  construct  any 
Huch  vessels,  but  had  constructed  others  on  an  opposite  prin- 
ciple,  or  upon  a  model  involving  a  mixed  medley  of  conflict- 
ing  principles,  the  failure  that  must  inevitably  have  resulted 
would  have  been  tluirs,  and  not  the  failure  of  Robert  Ful- 
ton, or  of  his  principles  or  his  model.  Jusi  so  Christian- 
ity  is  not  proved  to  be  a  failure  because  those  who 
undertake  to  reach  its  promised  results,  make  a  failure 
themselves  in  not  conforming  their  characters  and  activ- 
ities to  the  Christian  model.  And  the  institutions  of 
Moses  would  not  have  been  proved  a  failure  if  the  Hebrews 
had  wholly  failed  to  preserve  and  administer  them  in  ac- 
cordance with  the  spirit  that  moulded  them.  Quite  the 
opposite  of  such  conclusions  would  be  the  philosophical 
ones.     And  it  is  high  time  to  suspect  that    the    notorious 


144?  DEMUCKAUV  Ob    CHRJSTlAMll. 

failure  of  so  called  government,  in  general,  the  world  over, 
for  thirty  centuries  past,  to  reach  in  any  very  satisfactory 
degree,  its  proposed  and  professed  object,  may  be  owing 
to  the  failure  of  mankind  to  conform  their  political  activ- 
ities and  institutions  to  the  living  spirit  and  essential  idea 
of  the  divine  model,  so  laboriously,  so  conspicuously,  and 
thus  early  presented  to  mankind,  by  the  hand  of  Moses, 
from  the  Divine  Lawgiver  himself. 

[We  say  to  manki?id — because,  if  the  Hebrews  were  thus 
expensively  set  apart  and  educated  to  become  a  peculiar 
people,  ^he  model  nation  for  the  ultimate  benefit  of  all  the 
earth,  it  seems  incredible  that  the  civil  and  political  insti- 
tutions provided  for  them  should  contain  nothing  deservinf^ 
the  earnest  study  of  man,  in  ail  ages,  in  all  climates,  to 
the  end  of  time.  Why  else  is  the  portion  of  the  Hebrew 
Scriptures  that  contain  the  record  preserved  and  retained 
in  the  Christian  Canon  1] 

But  although  we  cannot  consent  to  test  the  wisdom  or 
the  practicability  of  the  Mosaic  democracy,  by  the  stand- 
ard of  ihe  unv/isdom  and  impracticability  of  those  who, 
at  any  period  of  the  Hebrew  annals,  ma\^  have  prevented 
or  discarded  it,  it  is  gratifying  to  know  that  their  institu- 
tions were  not  wholly  useless  to  them  ;  and  it  is  instruc- 
tive to  notice  that  their  beneticiai  results  kept  con- 
stant pace  with  the  fidelity  with  which  they  were  ad- 
ministered, and  both  of  these  with  the  degree  of  inteo-ri- 
ty  and  faith  with  which  they  adhered  to  the  worship  and 
commandments  to  Jehovah,  in  oeneral. 

Times  of  military  enterprise,  invasion  and  conquest, 
are  not  commonly  remarkable  for  exemplifications  of  pop- 
ular sovereignty,  or  for  the  deliberate  action  of  the  dem- 
ocratic masses,  in  national  afliiirs.  Yet  the  times  of 
Joshua  are  nevertheless  strongly  marked,  by  the  sponta- 
neous political  activity  and  controlling  power  of  the  peo- 
ple. "  And  the  whole  congregation  of  the  children  of  Is- 
rael assembled  together  at-Shiloh,  and  set  up  the  taber- 
of.  the  congregation   there,  and  the  land  was  subdued  be- 


DEMOCKACY  OF  CHRlSTIAiNlTY.  145 

fore  them.''_Josh.  xviii.    1.     While   assembled   on   that 
occasion  they  took  measures,  at  the  suggestion  of  Joshua, 
for  dividing  the  land  among  the  tribes.     A  committee  of 
thirty-six,  three  from   each  tribe,  was  chosen  by  the  peo- 
pie,  to   go  through  the  land  and  divide   it  into  parts,  de- 
scribe it,  and  make  report  to  Joshua  who  should  cast' lots 
for  them,  in  the  division,  at  Shiloh.     After  this,  arrange- 
ments were  made  for  organizing  the  judiciary,  accordhig 
to  the  law  of  Moses.     The  people   appointed  the  cities  of 
refuge,  and  the  people  were  charged   with  the  administra- 
tion of  justice,  the  slayer  to   ''  dwell  in  that  city,  until  he 
stand  before  the  congregation  in  judgment."     (Chap,  xx.) 
In  his  old  age,  and  in  anticipation  of  his  speedy  decease, 
"  Joshua  called  for  all  Israel,  and  for  their  elders,  and  for 
their  heads,  and  for  their  officers,"  to  give  them  his  part- 
ing advice  and  admonition.     (Chap,  xxiii.  2,  xxiv.  1.)    ^o 
that  at  that  time  their  democratic  organization  was  com- 
plete, and  the  mass  of  the  people,  with  their  chosen  offi- 
cers,    were   assembled  together    for.  important  political 
transactions.     On  that  occasion  the  aged  veteran,  in  the 
presence  of  their  chief  rulers,  addressed  the  people,  en 
masse,  in  respect  to  their  national  concerns,  as  taking  for 
granted  that  it  was  understood,  on  all  hands,  that  the  na- 
tional   responsibilities    rested   primarily   and  essentially 
upon  them.      Whoever   reads,   attentiv^ely,    his    eloquent 
and    pathetic   valedictory  cannot   but   perceive  this.     To 
the  people  he  recapitulated  the  story  of  their  deliverances, 
to  the  peopJe  he  addressed  the  exhortations,   the   encour- 
agements, and  the  warnings,  appropriate  to  their  present 
circumstances  and  condition,  as  a  nation,  to  the  people  he 
put  the  question  whether  they  would  now  renew  and  rati- 
fy their  national  covenant  with  Jchovaii,  which  bound  them 
to  be  guided  and  governed  solely  by  the  laws  and  the  in- 
stitutions ''  written  in  the  book  of  the  law  of  Moses,  that  ye 

turn  not  aside  therefrom,  to  the  right  hand  or  to  the  left.'' 

xxiii.  6,  and  xxiv.  14-27. 

And  the  people  responded  to  Joshua  and  said  : 


146  DEMOURACY  OF  GIlRISTlANrrV. 

«  We  will  serve  the  Lord.  And  Joshua  said  unto  the 
people,  Ye  are  witnesses  against  yourselves  that  ye  have 
chosen  you  the  Lord,  to  serve  Him,  and  they  said,  W  e 
are    witnesses.  ^  *         And   the   people  said  unto 

Joshua,  the  Lord  our  Sod  will  we  serve,  and  His  voice 
will  we  obey.  So  Joshua  made  a  covenant  with  the  P^ople^ 
and  set  them  a  statute  and  an  ordinance  in  Shechem.  • 
And  Joshua  wrote  these  words  in  the  book  of  the  law  ot 
God,  and  took  a  great  stone,  and  set  it  up  there  under  an 
oak,  that  was  by  the  sanctuary  of  the  Lord.  And  Joshua 
said  unto  all  the  people,  Behold  this  stone  shall  be  a  wit- 
ness unto  us,  for  it  hath  heard  all  the  words  of  the  Lord 
which  he  spake  unto  us,  it  shaU  therefore  be  a  witness 
unto  you,  lest  ye  deny  your  God." — v.  21-27. 

This  was  as  distinctly  a  political  as  it  was  a  religious 
transaction.  The  covenant  with  Jehovah  included  a  rat- 
ification of  the  Constitution  of  Civil  Government  He  had 
given  them.  The  covenant  was  itself  a  "  statute  and  an 
ordinance,'^  bearing  date  in  the  name  of  the  place  where 
it  was  made,  as  a  national  compact  to  which  "  all  the 
people"  were  a  partj^  This  compact  co-incident  with 
'nhe  Book  of  the  law  of  Moses,"  was  a  written  compact, 
and  as  such,  was  deposited  with  jt,  in  the  national  ar- 
chives, and  a  monument  was  erected  at  the  then  recog- 
nized capitol,  the  sanctuary,  as  a  memorial  of  the  trans- 
action. This  renewed  ratification  of  their  democratic 
constitution  of  government  was  thus  connected  and  iden- 
tified with  all  that  was  sacred  in  their  religion,  so  r.^.at 
they  could  not  abjure  it  without  rebelling  against  God. 

Thenceforward,  the  people,  "the  children  of  Israel,"  are 
introduced  in  the  history,  as  the  doers  of  what  was  done 
in  political  allliirs.  "  Now,  after  the  death  of  Joshua,  the 
children  of  Israel  asked  the  Lord,  saying,  Who  shall  go 
up  for  us  against  the  CanaaniteS  first  and  fight  for  us. 
And  the  Lord  said,  Judah  shall  go  first."— Jwc/o-e-s  i.  1-2. 
Nothing  appears  of  a  chief  magistrate,  of  a  senate,  of  a 
council,  of  a  legislature.  "  The  children  of  Israel  pros- 
pered and  prevailed  against  Jabin,  the  king  of  Canaan." 
—Chap.  iv.  24.     Similar  language  runs  through  the  en- 


DEMOCRACY  OF  CHRISTIANITY.  147 

tire  history,  "  The  children  of  Israel"  constituted  the 
Hebrew  commonwealth  j  when  they  were  faithful,  the  na- 
tion was  prosperous,  when  they  did  evil,  the  nation  de- 
clined. The  people  were  the  state.  Whatever  officers 
they  may  have  had,  they  were  the  officers  of  the  people, 
not  of  "the  government"  as  contra-distinguished /row  ihe 
people.  The  Hebrews  of  that  period  knew  nothing  of  any 
such  human  government  as  this. 

The  last  chapter  of  the  book  of  the  Judges,  though  it 
speaks  of  '-the  elders  of  the  congregation,"  (v.  16,)  in- 
forms us  likewise  how  "the  men  of  Israel  had  sworn  in 
xMizpeh"  (v.  1,)  how  "  the  children  of  Israel"  held  consul- 
tations, (v.  5,)  how  the  children  of  Israel  repented"  of 
certain  political  acts,^(v.  6,)  "  and  the  congregation  sent 
twelve  thousand"  valiant  men,  (v.  10,)  "  and  how  the 
whole  congregation  sent  some  to  speak  to  the  children  of 
Benjamin  (v.  13,)  "  and  the  people  repented"  of  their  oath 
in  Mizpeh  (v.  15,)  "In  those  days  there  was  no  king  in 
Israel."     (v.  25.) 

It  must  be  an  obdurate  skepticism  that  doubts  whether 
the  people  were  recognized  as  holding,  under  God,  the  su- 
preme power  of  the  state,  at  that  time,  whatever  may  have 
been  their  lack  of  wisdom,  in  the  discharge  of  the  respon- 
sibilities growing  out  of  the  relation  they  sustained. 
Equally  evident  it  seems  to  be  that  this  democratic  fea- 
ture of  the  Hebrew  state  was  in  accordance  with  the  in- 
stitutions of  Moses.  How  came  it  to  pass  that  "  there 
was  no  king  in  Israel^'  and  that  "  the  people"  had  charo-e 
of  political  affairs  %  To  what  chapter  and  verse  of  "  ihe 
book  of  the  law  of  Moses"  shall  we  recur,  if  we  Avoiild 
convict  them  of  disorganization  in  this  matter  1  Nay,  to 
what  portion  of  that  book  shall  we  turn  for  an  approving  li- 
cense to  any  other  governmental  arrangements  than  they 
retained  \ 

But  who,  it  may  be  asked,  w^er3  the  "judges"  of 
that  era,  from  whom  the  book,  bearing  that  name 
takes  its   title  1      What    were   their  functions,  by  whom 


148  DEMOCKA.OY  OF  CHRISTIANITY. 

were  they   appointed,   and  what  bearing   did  their  office 
have  upon  the  institutions  of  the  Hebrews. 

The  true  answers    to   these  questions  must  be  such  as 
shall  not  conflict  with  the  facts  already  adduced. 

In  the  second  chapter  of  the  book  of  the  Judges  we  are 
told  how  "  the  people  served  the   Lord,  all  the  days  of 
Joshua,  and  all  the  days  of  the  elders  that  outlived  Josh- 
ua." {y.  7.)     Afterwards  they  forsook  the   Lord,  and  fol- 
lowed other  gods,  and  the  Lord  was  angry  with  them,  and 
"  He  delivered  them  into  the  hands  of  spoilers  that  spoil- 
ed them.     *     *     Nevertheless  the  Lord  raised  up  judges 
that  delivered  them  out  of  the  hand  of  them  that  spoiled 
them.     And  yet  they  would  not  hearken  unto  their  judg- 
es,   but   went  a  whoring  after  other  gods."    {v.    16,    17.) 
The  history  proceeds  to  state  that  '''when  the  Lord  raised 
them  up  judges,  then  the  Lord  was  with  the  judge  and  deliv- 
ered them,"  but  "  when  the  judge  was  dead,  they  returned 
and  corrupted  themselves."     This  conveys  the  impression, 
which  the  details  of  the  history  confirm,  that  these  judges 
were  raised  up,  occasionally,  as  God  saw  a   necessity  for 
them,  that  they  performed  a  special   and    temporary  ser- 
vice, and  that  there  were  intervals,  not  unfrequently,  be- 
tween the  times  of  their  several  missions,  when  there  was 
no  judge,  of  this  description,  in  Israel.     They  are  not  to 
be  confounded    ,vith  the  magistrates  regularly  elected  by 
the  people,  under  the  judiciary  system  of  Moses,  though  in 
some  instances,  particularly  that  of  Jepthah,  {Chap,  xi.)  the 
the  people  appear  to  have  elected  them,  and  in  all  cases, 
the  assent  of  the  people  may  be  presumed,  since  they  vol- 
untarily flocked  around  them   as   their  leaders.     For  the 
most  part,  their  service  seems  to  have  been  that  of  milita- 
ry commanders,  though  one  of  the  texts  quoted  implies 
that  they  admonished  the  people  against  idolatry  thus  ac- 
ting as  religious  teachers.     Except  in  the  case  of  Debo- 
rah, who  was  a  prophetess,  and   to    whom   the  people  in- 
stinctively and  voluntarily  resorted  for  judgment  in  their 
controversies,  the  Judges,    so  called,  of  this  era,  are  r'>* 


DEMOOKAOi'    OF  UllRlSTlANlTr.  149 

recorded  as  having  been  much  occupied  in  judicial  mat- 
ters, and  what  we  call  legislation  must  have  been  with  the 
Hebrews  of  that  era,  out  of  the  question.  God  '<  raised 
them  up"  for  special  services  in  His  providence,  as  He 
"  raises  up"  other  distinguished  men,  good  and  bad,  (Pha- 
raohs not  excepted)  though  the  history  and  the  texts  cited 
lead  us  to  consider  some  of  them  as  good  men.  Othniel 
and  Gideon  appear  to  have  been  divinely  commissioned 
and  to  have  entered  into  the  spirit  of  their  mission. 

In  the  raising  up  of  these  Judges  no  new  political  in- 
stitutions were  introduced.  Their  functions  were  peculiar 
— the  office  (if  it  be  called  such)  occasional,  extraneous, 
not  permanently  incorporated  into  the  national  polity.* 

One  remarkable  attempt  during  the  period  under  re- 
view, to  usurp  kingly  power  and  overturn  the  common- 
wealth, deserves  a  moment's  attention.  Abimelech,  one 
of  the  numerous  sons  of  Gideon,  soon  after  his  death,  as- 
pired not  to  be  judge  but  king. 

He  "  went  to  Shechem,  unto  his  mother's  brethren  and 
communed  with  them,  and  with  all  the  family  of  the  house 
of  his  mother's  father,  saying,  Speak,  I  pray  you  in  the 
ears  of  all  the  men  of  Shechem,  saying.  Whether  is  better 
for  you, either  that  all  the  sons  of  Jerubbaal  [Gideon]  which 
are  three  score  and  ten  persons  reign  over  you,  or  that  o?ie 
reign  over  you.  Kcmember  also  that  I  am  your  bone  and 
your  flesh." — Judges  ix.  1,  2. 

The  argument  for  monarchy  in  preference  to  a  common- 
wealth, that  the  control  of  one  is  preferable  to  the  control 
of  vm?iy^  is  here  distinctly  visible.  The  same  argument 
is  current  in  kindred  circles  to  the  present   day. 

The  appeal  was  successful.  The  men  of  Shechem  sup- 
plied Abimelech  with  silver  out  of  the  house  of  Baal-bereth, 
wherewith  he  "  hired  light  and  vain  persons  which  fol- 
lowed him."     Baal-bereth    was    one    of  their   irods    and 


*  These  [  jud<,'es]  were  not  a  leirular  gucccssion  oT  <Tovcrnors,  but  occa- 
sional deliverers,  oicliflierciu  tribes  imd  Ibmiiifs,  (mjiioNed  to  rescue  the 
nation  from  oppressors,  to  relorm  religion,  or  to  administer  justice.  They 
seem  not  )o  have  assumed  any  degree  of  reaal  magnificence,  or  to  have  ex- 
ercised any  expensive  or  burdensome  authority.''—  Scotl's  Oummcntary. 


150  DEMOGKACY^  OF  CHRISTIANITY. 

thus  the  upstart  king  became  a  pensioner  of  the  idol  or 
a  co-ordinate  divinity  with  him.  The  next  step  was  to 
murder  all  the  remaining  sons  of  Gideon,  except  Jotham 
who  escaped,  and  Abimelech  was  made  king  over  the 
men  of  Shechem. 

On  this  occasion  Jotham,  adventuring  for  a  moment 
within  hearing  of  them,  delivered  his  celebrated  fable, 
^'the  most  ancient  specimen  of  that  description  of  litera- 
ture extant,  and  seldom  if  ever  exceeded."  As  a  model 
of  chaste  and  dignified  irony  it  is  perfect,  and  it  sets  forth 
the  folly  of  king  worship,  the  character  of  aspirants  to 
kingship,  the  impotency  of  their  proffered  protection,  and 
the°common  results  of  confiding  in  them,  in  bright  and 
imperishable  colors. 

"  The  trees  [said  he]  went  forth  on  a  time  to  anoint  a 
kincr  over  them  ;  and  they  said  unto  the  olive  tree.  Reign 
thoS  over  us.  But  the  olive  tree  said  unto  them.  Should 
I  leave  my  fatness  wherewith  by  me  they  honor  God  and 
man,  and  go  to  be  promoted  over  the  trees  \  And  the 
trees  said  to  the  fig-tree.  Come  thou,  and  reign  over  us. 
But  the  fio-.tree  said  unto  them.  Should  1  forsake  my 
sweetness  and  my  good  fruit,  and  go  to  be  promoted  over 
the  trees.  Then  said  the  trees  unto  the  vine,  Come  thou 
and  reio-n  over  us.  And  the  vine  said  unto  them,  bhould 
1  leave  my  wine  which  cheereth  God  and  man,  and  go  to 
be  promoted  over  the  trees  1  Then  said  all  the  trees  unto 
the  bramble,  Come  thou  and  reign  over  us.  And  the  bram- 
ble said  unto  the  trees,  if  in  truth  ye  anoint  me  king  over 
vou,  then  come  and  put  your  trust  in  my  shadow  ;  and  it 
not  let  fire  come  out  of  the  bramble,  and  devour  the  cedars 
of  Lebanon." — Judges  ix.  8-15. 

Had  the  trees  been  content  with  the  post  the  God  of 
nature  assigned  to  them,J:hey  had  never  been  seen  roam- 
ing about  after  a  king.  As  it  was,  the  most  valuable  among 
them  understood  that  they  could  be  more  useful  where 
they  were,  and  that  their  choicest  qualities  and  richest 
possessions  would  be  hazarded  or  lost  by  the  exchange  of 
situation  proposed  to  them.  But  the  most  weak,  worth- 
less, and  troublesome  among  them,  that  hardly  deserved 
a  rank  among  the  trees  at  all,  was  easily  inflated  with  the 


DJ'MOCKACY  OF   CHKISTIANITV.  lol 

ambition  of  kingship  and  forward  to  offer  protection,  yet 
intimating  "the  terrible  consequences  of  their  offending 
him,  though  indeed  he  was  fit  for  nothing  but  a  fire-brand, 
to  set  them  all  at  variance,  to  their  common  destruction, 
as  the  bramble  being  set  on  fite,  may  communicate  the 
flame  to  the  loftiest  cedars  and  consume  them  along  with 
itself  in  the  common  conflagration." 

This  fable  was  applied  by  Jotham  to  Abimelech  and 
the  men  of  Shechem.  The  sequel  of  the  story  proved 
it  prophetic.  After  three  years  of  usurped  dominion, 
Abimelech  and  the  men  of  Shechem  became  at  variance. 
Abimelech  destroyed  most  of  them  and  was  in  turn  destroy- 
ed. That  he  was  ever  cordially  acknowledged  by  all  Israel 
as  their  king  does  not  appear.  Though  first  made  king  over 
the  men  of  Shechem,  he  is  afterwards  said  to  have  "reign- 
ed three  years  over  Israel,"  which  may  only  mean  that  he 
claimed  the  throne,  and  was  not  or  could  not  be  put  down 
during  that  time.  The  historian  seems  to  have  avoided 
calling  him  king  of  Israel,  and  the  "  Chronicles  of  the 
kings  of  Israel "  afterwards  written,  do  not  enrol  his  name 
on  the  list.  This  experiment  of  autocracy  was  at  least 
transient.  The  Commonwealth  was  not  sufficiently  cor- 
rupt and  decrepid  to^be  permanently  subverted  then,  nor 
until  about  one  hundred  and  thirty  years  afterwards. 

The  decline  of  virtue  and  of  the  spirit  of  liberty  was 
gradual.  When  "  the  children  of  Israel"  departed  from 
God,  they  lost,  in  a  corresponding  measure,  the  spirit  of 
their  democratic  institutions,  as  the  people  of  other  de- 
mocracies do  in  such  cases,  and  they  had  to  suffer  the 
same  penalties,  and  endure  the  same  evils,  to  wit,  depre- 
dations upon  their  rights,  subjection  to  despotic  and  arro- 
gant adversaries,  internal  dissensions,  feuds,  broils,  an- 
archy, and  sometimes  civil  war.  The  best  that  Divine 
Providence  can  ordinarily  do  for  such  a  people,  unless 
they  become  thoroughly  reformed,  is  to  raise  up  for  them  a 
series  of  temporary  defenders — some  acting  the  part  of 
faithful  reprovers,  others  resisting  manfully  the  waves  of 


152  DEMOCRACY  OF  CHKISTIAxMTi'. 

aggression,  some  acting  from  motives  of  philanthropy  and 
patriotism,  others  playing  the  part  of  demagogues  as  well 
as  defenders — many  of  them  assuming,  almost  of  necessi- 
ty, during  the  crisis  of  affairs,  the  position  of  temporary 
dictators.  Such  a  state  of  things  results  commonly  in 
the  still  further  corruption  of  morals  and  depravity  of 
manners.  The  love  of  military  adventure  supplants  the 
love  of  the  avocations  of  peace.  The  people  lose,  from  the 
disuse  or  perversion  of  their  free  institutions,  the  taste, 
the  capacity,  and  even  the  desire  for  the  administration 
of  them.  Fixing  their  eyes  upon  some  of  the  idolized  chiefs 
of  rival  nations  around  them,  the  height  of  their  ambition 
is  to  have  a  similar  object  of  semi-adoration  to  whom 
they  can  bow  down,  and  who  will  lead  them  on  to  enter- 
prises of  conquest  and  perhaps  plunder.  A  military  mon- 
archy thus  displaces  the  democratic  commonwealth.  Thus 
it  was  with  the  Hebrews.  Thus  it  has  been  with  other 
nations.  Similar  causes  will  always  produce  similar  ef- 
fects. A  democratic  community  that  casts  off  the  fear  of 
God  must  expect  to  forfeit  its  democratic  institutions  and 
come  under  the  yoke  of  a  monarchy,  if  not  an  absolute  des- 
potism. The  scenes  described  in  the  Books  of  Judges  and 
of  Samuel  are  fraught  with  lessons  of  invaluable  political 
instruction  for  those  who  will  study  them.  When  a  com- 
monwealth passes  through  the  process  that  has  just  now 
been  described — when,  in  the  mean  time,  a  religion  like 
that  of  the  thievish  and  superstitious  Micah  and  his  vagrant 
Levite  from  Bethlehem-judah  supplants,  in  half  the  nation, 
the  worship  of  the  true  God  (Judges  xvii.) — when  many  of 
the  professed  priests  of  Jehovah  become  dissolute  and  rapa- 
cious like  Hophni  and  Phinehas,  and  even  the  better  portion 
of  them  become  as  lenient  in  ecclesiastical  or  family  disci- 
pline as  Eli,  and  as  unwise  in  the  useof  their  political  power 
as  Samuel  (  I  Samuel  viii.  1-3.) — then  is  the  time  when  the 
commonwealth  is  ripening  into  the  condition  in  which  its 
citizens  will  probably  desire  a  king  to  reign  over  them 
rather  than  perform  the  manly  duties  of  virtuous  freemen 


DEMOCRACY  OF  CHRISTIANITY.  153 

— another  illustration  of  the  connexion  between  democracy 
and  true  religion,  showing  plainly  enough  the  relation  be- 
tween democratic  institutions,  like  those  of  Moses,  and 
the  monarchical  arrangements  that  not  unfrequently  dis- 
place and  succeed  them. 

These  conclusions  will  be  confirmed  by  a  recurrence  to  the 
prophetic  allusion  of  Moses  to  the  future  period  in  which  the 
people  would  desire  a  monarchy,  and  to  the  prospective  limi- 
tation of  that  monarchy  which  he  enjoined  when  it  should  take 
place;  and  by  comparing  likewise  those  Avords  of  Moses  with 
the  statements  and  declarations  of  Samuel,  when  the  event 
finally  took  place. 

"  When  thou  art  come  unto  the  land  which  the  Lord  thy 
God  giveth  thee,  and  shalt  possess  it  and  shalt  dwell  therein, 
and  shalt  say,  I  will  set  a  king  over  me,  like  as  all  the  nations 
that  are  about  me  ;  Thou  shalt  in  any  wise  set  him  king  over 
thee  whom  the  Lord  thy  God  shall  choose,  one  from  among 
thy  brethren  shalt  thou  set  king  over  thee;  thou  may  est  not 
set  a  stranger  over  thee  which  is  not  thy  brother." — Deut.  xxvii. 
14-15. 

On  this  passage,  a  divine  of  the  Church  of  England,  not 
very  liable  to  be  unduly  prejudiced  against  monarchical  ar- 
rangements, remarks  as  follows : 

"  The  appointment  of  a  king  is  not  here  commanded^  nor  so 
much  as  coimselled,  nay,  it  is  implied  that  such  a  change  in 
their  government  would  originate  from  a  desire  of  being  like 
the  nations  to  whom  God  would  have  his  people  unlike,  and 
we  know  that  they  sinned  when  they  asked  a  king.  Yet  the 
Lord  foresaw  that  this  would  take  place,  and  He  previously 
gave  rules  respecting  it." — Scott's  Commentary. 

It  is  further  to  be  noted  that  the  monarch}'-  here  to  be  tol- 
erated, was  not  one  that  was  to  be  established  over  the  people, 
■without  their  consent.  On  the  other  hand,  the  event  contem- 
plated is  expressly  described  as  one  in  which  the  people  them- 
selves  would  desire  a  king,  and  even  determine  upon  having 
one  at  all  events.  And  such  was  the  fact,  in  the  days  of  Sam- 
uel. The  directions  given  to  the  people,  moreover,  imply  that 
they  would  set  a  king  over  them,  by  a  voluntary  s^'lection  of 
the  oandidato,  and  hence  the  directions  in  respect  to  bis  quali- 


154  DEMOCRACY    OF    CIIRISTUNITY. 

fications  were  addressed  to  them,  as  tlioiigli  they  l^ad  a  deter- 
mining voice  in  the  matter.  And  another  particular  in  respect 
to  this  monarchy,  was  that  the  monarch  should  be  one  whom 
the  Lord  should  choose.  The  concurrent  action  both  of  Jeho- 
vah and  of  the  people  was  necessary  to  the  validity  of  a  title  to 
the  throne  under  this  charter.  And  consequently  there  was 
nothing  in  this  toleration  of  a  monarchy  as  thus  described,  that 
could  be  cited  as  a  precedent  or  warranty  for  a  monarchy  not 
thus  characterized.  A  monarchy  established  over  a  people  by 
force,  without  their  consent,  and  without  showing  evidence  of 
a  divine  commission  is  not  included  in  this  description.  And 
hence  the  doctrine  of  the  "  divine  right  of  kings"  either  by 
hereditary  descent,  or  on  the  plea  that  the  wisest,  the  best, 
and  the  strongest,  have,  in  ccnsequence,  a  natural,  a  necessary, 
a  God-given  right  to  rule  over  their  brethren,  is  a  doctrine 
that  must  look  for  support  elsewhere  than  in  the  bare  toler- 
ance (not  recommendation)  of  an  elective  monarchy  over  the 
Hebrews,  after  they  had  rejected  and  overthrown  the  better 
institutions  originally  provided  for  them. 

But  this  is  not  all.  The  monarchy  that  was  to  be  tolerated 
was  to  be  limited  and  restricted,  in  a  number  of  important  par- 
ticulars, and  held  subject  to  some  remarkable  provisos  and  con- 
ditions. There  are  those  at  the  present  day  who  discard  the 
idea  that  civil  government  should  be  limited  by  any  specific 
inhibitions  or  restrictions.  But  the  king  of  the  Hebrews,  if 
they  persisted  in  having  one,  was  to  be  confined  within  narrow 
boundaries. 

Whatever  wisdom,  goodness,  or  strength  he  might  possess 
he  must  be  one  of  the  children  of  Israel  or  he  could  not  be  king 
over  them.  He  must  have  no  cavalry.  He  must  not  multi- 
ply to  himself  horses,  for  war  or  for  luxui-y.  He  must  have  no 
intercourse  with  Egypt,  the  land  of  horses,  for  that  purpose. 
He  must  not  multiply  to  himself  wives,  after  the  manner  qf 
other  eastern  monarchs.  He  must  accumulate  n©  princely  rev- 
enues, of  silver  or  gold.  He  must  transcribe  for  himself  a 
copy  of  the  law  of  Moses,  and  "read  therein,  all  the  days  of  his 
life,  that  lie  may  1<';n-ii  to  fear  tlio  Lord  liis  God.  and  keep  all 


DEMOCRACY    OF    CHRISTIANITY. 


155 


the  words  of  this  law,  and  these  statutes,  to  do  themr  His 
heart  must  not  be  ''lifted  up  above  his  brethren."  He  must 
consider  and  treat  them  as  equals.     (See  Deut.  xvii.  15-20.) 

The  kings  of  Israel  and  Judah,  not  excepting  David  and 
Solomon,  were  very  far  from  conforming  themselves  to  these 
directions,  and  the  gad  consequences  are  apparent  from  the  his- 
tory. "  One  is  almost  tempted  to  think,"  says  Scott,  "  that  this 
chapter  was  omitted  in  Solomon's  copy  of  the  law,  and  those 
of  the  other  kings  of  Israel  and  Judah !"  Attempts  at.  limiting 
monarchies  have  never  been  very  successful,  in  any  age  of  the 
world.  The  divine  wisdom  of  the  Hebrew  limitations  are  none 
the  less  apparent,  nevertheless.  Let  monarchs  be  deprived  of 
the  facilities  for  war  that  would  put  them  in  a  position  to 
compete  in  their  military  display  and  enterprise  with  the  sur- 
rounding princes,  (give  to  the  Hebrew  kings  no  cavalry  or  war 
chariots^  to  the  British  kings  no  navies,  to  the  French  emperors 
no  artillery)  next  to  take  from  them  their  injmense  revenues, 
(''Neither  shall  he  multiply  to  himself  silver  and  gold")  re- 
move from  them  all  profligate  courtezans  and  courtiers,  compel 
them  to  write  out,  to  study,  and  to  follow  "  the  book  of  the 
law  of  Moses,"  then  let  them  not  be  "  lifted  up  above  their 
brethren,"  and  the  word  monarchy  would  soon  acquire  a  new 
meaning.  The  ambition  to  become  monarchs  would  subside, 
and  the  rage  to  have  "a  king  like  as  the  nations  that  are  round 
about,"  would  abate,  in  proportion. 

The  terms  prescribed  for  the  Hebrew  monarch  conferred 
upon  him  no  legislative  power.  The  charge  to  "  keep  all  the 
words  of  this  law,  and  these  statutes  to  do  them"—''  that  he 
turn  not  aside  from  the  commandments  to  the  right  hand  or  to 
the  left,"  amounted  to  a  iirohihition  of  exercising  legislative 
functions!  There  was  the  law— there  were  the  "statutes," 
ready-made,  to  his  hand.  All  he  had  to  do  was  to  transcribe, 
to  read,  to  study,  to  obey,  to  administer  them.  Here  his  com- 
mission ended!  To  "  keep  all  the  words  of  this  law,  and  these 
statutes  to  do  them,"  was  to  preserve  the  same  judicial  ar- 
rangements that  were  therein  described,  the  judges  of  thou- 
sands, of  hundreds,  of  fifties,  of  tens,  all  elected  l)v  the  people 


156  DEiVlOCRACy    OF    CHRISTIANITY. 

— it  was  to  preserve  likewise  the  court  of  the  congregation,  (or 
town  meeting  en  masse)  for  the  trial  of  capital  offences,  togeth- 
er with  the  Court  of  final  reference  or  appeal,  constituted  as 
the  law  described.  What,  then,  of  kingly  prerogative,  was  left 
to  the  constitutional  king  ?  What  but  a  general  oversight  of 
these  judiciary  arrangements,  to  see  that  they  were  duly  pre- 
served, and  a  central  executive  power,  such  as  the  institutions 
of  Moses  did  not  j^rovide,  analagous  to  the  chief  magistracy  of 
a  modern  republican  nation  or  state,  including  perhaps,  the 
command  of  the  army,  which,  under  the  law,  must  be  volunta- 
ry. [Deut.  XX.  8.)  Where,  or  to  what  extent,  except,  perhaps, 
in  the  army,  was  there  scope  for  him  to  exercise  the  appoint- 
ing power  ?  A  cabinet,  a  council,  for  his  own  convenience,  he 
might  perhaps  appoint,  but  he  could  not  communicate  to  them 
what  he  did  not  himself  possess.  They  could  have  no  legislative 
power.  In  a  word,  the  monarchy  to  be  tolerated  under  these 
restrictions  and  limitations,  had  they  taken  full  efifect,  would 
have  been,  in  most  particulars,  more  democratic  than  any  re- 
public that  now  exists  in  the  world. 

And  yet  the  children  of  Israel  sinned  in  desiring  a  king. 
God  had  pro\'ided  a  better,  a  more  thoroughly  democratic  pol- 
ity for  them.  In  desiring  a  king,  "  like  as  the  natiojis  that 
■were  abouf^  them,  they  desired  what  indeed  God  did  not  con- 
sent to  authorize,  as  the  restrictions  and  prohibitions  already 
noticed,  bear  witness.  Nevertheless,  He  gave  them  a  king, 
though  He  foresaw  that  the  restrictiL>ns  and  prohibitions  with 
which  the  grant  was  accompanied  would  be  broken  over,  and 
their  remaining  liberties  gradually  undermined.  The  blessings 
of  democratic  freedom  He  would  not  force  upon  them.  Like 
the  high  spiritual  blessings  with  which  they  were  naturally 
connected,  they  could  not  be  forcibly  conferred,  nor  unwilling- 
ly or  heedlessly  enjoyed.  '  The  Lord  sees  the  hearts  of  His 
own  people,"  says  Scott,  '*  too  much  disposed  to  be  like  the 
world  around  them,  and  for  their  chastisement.  He  frequently 
permits  them  to  obtain  the  object  of  their  foolish  desires." 

The  history  of  the  revolution  predicted  by  Moses,  is  record- 
ed in  the  First  Book  of  Samuel.     That  prophet  was  the  last  of 


DEMOCR.U'V     OF    CHRLSTJANlTy.  15^ 

the  serins  of  extraordinary  judges  raised  up  for  the  deliverance 
of  Israel.  His  general  course  was  remarkably  correct,  but  in 
his  old  age  he  unwisely  promoted  his  sons  to  be  judges*  in  his 
stead,  and  *'  his  sons  walked  not  in  his  ways,  but  turned  aside  af- 
ter lucre,  and  took  bribes,  and  per\erted  judgment."  Here  was 
just  occasion  for  a  judiciary  reform,  but  none  for  the  subver- 
sion of  the  commonwealth,  or  for  the  establishment  of  a  mon- 
arch3^  But  the  leading  men  in  the  nation  took  advantage  of 
these  abuses,  to  bring  forward  and  push  their  favorite  revolu- 
tion arj^  projects. 

"  Then  all  the  elders  of  Israel  gathered  themselves  togeth- 
er, and  came  to  Samuel  toRamah,  and  said  unto  him.  Behold, 
thou  art  very  old,  and  thy  sons  walk  not  in  thy  ways,  now  make 
us  a  king  to  judge  us,  like  all  the  nations." — /.  Sam.  viii.  4-5. 

Tt  is  easy  to  conceive  that  the  elders  wvciy  have  made  a  very 
plausible  and  eloquent  argument  on  this  occasion.  As  advo- 
cates of  monarchy,  they  might  have  adverted,  as  their  succes- 
sors have  so  frequently  done,  to  the  inconveniences,  the  irreg- 
ularities, the  disorders,  to  which  democracies  were  exposed, 
and  to  which  that  community  has  been  so  long  subjected  for 
the  want  of  a  ''  stronger  government."  How  often,  during  the 
last  four  centuries,  had  the  nation  been  invaded  and  ravaged, 
if  not  laid  under  tribute.  The  relief,  under  the  most  success- 
ful of  their  commanders,  had  been  but  temporary  and  uncer- 
tain. At  times,  they  had  been  left  utterly  defenceless  and  un- 
organized. There  needed  a  central  and  consolidated  power 
that  should  give  unity  and  stability  to  the  national  action,  that 
should  combine  the  national  forces,  that  should  keep  the  coun- 
try in  a  proper  and  prudent  state  of  defence,  and  make  the 
nation  respected  abroad.  Besides  this,  there  was  needed,  in 
their  opinion,  a  more  efficient  government  at  home.  The  dis- 
orderly scenes  witnessed  at  Gibeah  were  not  to  be  easily  for- 


*  If  rfiunuel  nude  these  appointnipnts  without  the  concurrent  ¥0103  of 
the  people,  the  tiansactiou  was  a  inaiiiiest  (ie[>arturo  from  the  institutions 
and  tlie  examt)l(>  of  Moses,  and  indicated  a  criminal  nej^lect  ot  duty  on 
their  part.  If  they  participated  iii  the  a[)pointnionts,  they  should  have 
blamed  themselves  as  well  as  Samuel  for  the  faulty  selection,  and  been 
more  cnutious  in  future.  In  Vither  cnse,  the  circumstancea  betokened  a 
declining  coivmonwcalth. 

8 


158  DEMOORAGY  OF  OIIKISTIANITY, 


gotten,  nor  the  desolating  civil  war  which  grew  out  of  that  out- 
rageous and  disgraceful  transaction,  to  say  nothing  of  the 
shameless  perversion  of  justice  even  now  suffered,  under  the 
mal-administration  of  the  sons  of  Samuel !  What  harm  could 
there  be  in  having  a  king?  Had  not  Moses  evidently  antici- 
pated this  very  emergency  and  given  directions  for  their  course 
on  such  an  occasion  ?  Had  they  not  a  right  to  avail  themselves 
of  the  protection  within  their  reach  ?  Was  it  not  the  prerog- 
ative of  the  strong  to  protect  and  command  ?  Was  it  not  the 
privilege  and  duty  of  their  brethren,  reverently  to  bow  down 
to  them  and  obey  them  ?  Wliat  could  be  more  evident  than 
the  divine  right  of  kings  ?  And  was  it  not  high  time  to  bestir 
themselves  Avhen  Nahash,  the  king  of  the  children  of  Ammon 
had  already  taken  the  field  against  them,  and  they  had  no  king 
to  hft  a  finger  against  him,  to  levy  an  army,  or  take  a  single 
measure  for  the  national  defence  ? 

Thus,  we  may  suppose,  the  elders  of  Israel  may  have  argued, 
and  they  may  have  been  very  confident  of  desiring,  ardently,  the 
greatest  amount  of  good.  W^hether  some  secret,  lurking  hope 
of  obtaining  the  royal  crown  themselves,  or,  like  the  two  sons 
of  Zebidee,  of  beino-  promoted  to  high  posts  of  honor  under  it, 
mif>-ht  not  have  given,  unconsciously  to  themselves,  an  edge  to 
their  patriotic  zeal,  on  this  occasion,  we  may  conjecture,  if  we 
cannot  judge. 

«  But  the  thing  displeased  Samuel  when  they  said.  Give  us 
a  kino-  to  judge  us.  And  Samuel  prayed  unto  the  I.ord.  And 
the  Lord  saicf  unto  Samuel,  Hearken  unto  the  voice  of  the  peo- 
ple, in  all  that  they  say  unto  thee,  for  they  have  not  rejected 
thee  but  me,  that 'I  should  not  reign  over  them.  According 
to  all  the  works  that  they  have  done,  since  the  day  that  I  have 
brought  them  up  out  of  Egypt,  even  unto  this  day,  wherewith 
they' have  foisaken  me,  and  served  other  gods,  so  do  they  also 
tmto  thee.  Now  therefore  hearken  unto  their  voice,  yet  sol- 
emnly protest  unto  them,  and  show  them  the  manner  of  the 
king  that  shall  reign  over  them."—/.  Samuel,  viii.  C>-9. 

There  are  some,  in  modern  times,  who  would  restrict  the 
suffrao-e  of  the  citizens  to  those  who  show  their  competency  by 
making  a  right  use  of  it.  Who  they  would  appoint  to  be  a 
judge  in  this  matter,  or  by  whom  or  in  what  manner  such  a 


DEMOCKACV   OF  CHRJSTIANITV.  159 

censor  should  be  selected,  they  do  not  inform  iis.  But  they 
insist  that  it  is  inconsistent  for  any  to  one  reprove  the  people 
for  tlieir  v.icked  voting,  and  yet  concede  to  them  the  right  of 
voting.  Yet  Samuel  was  directed  to  protest  against  the  vote 
given  on  this  occasion,  while  at  the  same  time,  he  was  not  to 
call  in  question  their  prerogative  of  acting,  nor  to  interpose,  ex- 
cept by  solemn  protestation,  between  them  and  their  wishes. 
This  was  not  conceding  their  right  to  act  wrong,  but  only  their 
right  to  act;  along  with  their  consequent  right  to  "  eat,"  as 
they  must  needs  do,  "  the  fruit  of  their  own  way,  and"  to  "be 
filled  with  their  own  devices."  To  Samuel,  with  all  his  pro- 
phetic inspiration,  the  prerogative  was  not  committed,  of  say- 
ing to  the  elders  or  to  the  people  »f  Israel,  "You  are  not  com- 
petent  to  vote,  because  you  vote  wrong,  and  I  interpose  my 
royal  veto  against  your  proceedings  and  annul  them,"  ;N^t 
even  when  they  Avere  so  insane  and  wicked  as  to  choose  a  kino-, 
and  thereby  rebel  against  God;  and  subvert,  in  a  measure, 
their  own  liberties,  would  God  permit  the  popular  vote  to  be 
set  aside  by  an  autocratic  reversal. 

"  And  Samuel  told  all  the  words  of  the  Lord  unto  the  peo- 
ple that  asked  of  him  a  king.  And  he  said.  This  will  be  the 
manner  of  the  king  that  shall  reign  over  you.  He  will  take 
your  sons  and  appoint  them  for  himself,  for  his  chariots,  and  to 
be  his  horsemen,  and  some  shall  run  before  his  chariots.  And 
he  will  appoint  liim  captains  over  thousands,  and  captains  over 
fifties,  and  will  set  them  to  ear  his  ground  and  to  reap  his  harvests, 
and  to  make  his  instruments  of  war  and  instruments  of  his  chariots. 
And  he  will  take  your  daughters  to  be  confectionaries,  and  to  be 
cooks,  and  to  be  bakers,  and  he  w^ill  take  your  fields,  and  your  vine- 
yards and  your  oliye  yards,  even  the  best  of  them"  and  give 
them  to  his  servants.  And  he  will  take  the  tenth  of  your  seed, 
and  of  your  vineyards,  and  give  to  his  officers  and  to  his  ser- 
vants. And  he  w-ill  take  your  men-servants,  and  your  maid-ser- 
vants, and  your  goodliest  young  men,  and  your  asses,  and  put 
them  to  his  work.  He  will  take  the  tenth  of  your  sheep,  and 
ye  shall  be  his  servants.  And  ye  shall  cry  out  in  that  day,  be- 
cause of  your  kino'  which  ye  have  chosen  you,  and  the^Lord 
will  not  hear  you  in  that  day." — v,  10-18. 

The  graphic  and  divinely  inspired  picture  of  monarchical  "in- 
stitutions, recorded  in  the  holy  Scriptures  for  the  instruction 


1(30  DEMOCKAGY  OF  GHIUSIIANITV. 

and  admonition  of  all  to  .vliom  the  sacred  volume  has  been 
sent,  stands  justified  by  the  history  of  almost  every  kmgly  gov- 
ernment from  that  day  to  the  present.  Who  can  read  it  with, 
out  perceiving  that  arrangements  of  such  a  general  bearing 
and  tendency,  as  here  set  forth,  are  not  in  accordance  with  the 
divine  will,  as  revealed  in  the  Bible  ? 

"  And  as  these  are  the    natural  effects  of  too  great  power, 
entrusted  with  a  fallen  creature,  we  ought,  consequently  to  pre- 
fer those  limitations  and  restrictions,  which  are  equally  beneh- 
cial  to  the  governors  and  the  governed."— Sco^^^  Commentary. 
In  this  picture  of  monarchy  we  may  notice  the  absence  of 
all  that  which  should  mainly  or  exclusively  characterize  a  just 
civil  government.     IS^ot  a   word  is   said  respecting  the  execu- 
ting of  justice  between  a  man  and  his  neighbor;  but  instead 
ofthis,  weperceive   a  new   element   introduced,  an  idea  alto- 
gether adverse  from  that  which  recognizes  the  community  as 
identical  with  the  government,  and  the  rights  of  each  member 
of  the  community  the  grand  object  of  attention  and  care.  There 
is  now  a  government,  in  distinction  from  the  community,  and  this 
government,  not  the  community  or  its  individual  members,  be- 
comes the  object  of  attention  and  regard.     Tlik  government 
too    becomes  identical  with  the  exalted  personage  that  repre- 
sents and  administers  it;  ^25  glory,  his  splendor,  his  emolu- 
ment, his  luxurious  gratification,  his  projects  of  ambition,  his 
equipao'e,hisfacihtiesfor  military  display  and  military  achieve- 
ment, Absorb  the  national  attention.     This  implies  and  involves 
a  splendid  retinue,  hordes  of  officials,  dependents  and  menials, 
servility,  degradation,  loss  of  self-respect,  venality,  meanness, 
false  honor,   the  ascendancy  of  the  artificiatthe  destruction  of 
the  natural,  the  multiplication  of  non-producers,  the  diminution 
of  producers.     There  is  involved  moreover  the  corrupting  pow- 
er of  executive  patronage  and  favoritism,  needless  officers,  high 
salaries,  exactions  upon  exactions,  inequality,  injustice,  oppres- 
sions, discontent,  concealment,  the  loss  of  liberty,   the  loss  of 
manUness,  the  loss  of  virtue.     When  was  there  ever  a  monar- 
ch on  earth,  of  which  these  were  not  the  legitimate  fruits? 
Thus  warned,  who  that  fears  God  or  regards  man  would  not 
pray  to  be  delivered  from  such  a  visitation? 


DEMOCRACY  OF  CHRISTIANITY.  161 

"  Nevertheless,  the  people  refused  to  obey  the  voice  of  Sam- 
uel, and  they  said,  Nay,  but  we  will  have  a  king  over  us,  tliat 
we  also  may  be  like  all  the  nations,  and  that  our  king  may  judge 
us,  and  go  out  before  us,  and  fight  our  battles." — v.  19,  20. 

The  fooUsh  vanity  of  making  a  show  like  other  people,  the 
wilhngness  to  throw  off  the  laborious  and  restraining  responsi- 
bilities and  activities  of  democratic  self  government,  (requiring 
patience  and  virtue)  together  with  a  taste  for  mihtary  display 
and  adventure,  are  mournfully  prominent  in  this  answer. 
Whenever,  in  any  democracy,  such  sentiments  are  found  to 
preponderate,  the  spirit  of  free  institutions  is  languishing. 

The  people  of  Israel  had  their  choice.  God  provided  for 
them  a  king,  but  sent  them  by  the  prophet  Samuel,  the  mes- 
sages of  his  displeasure. 

"  And  Samuel  called  the  people  of  Israel  together  at  Mis- 
peh ;  and  said  unto  the  children  of  Israel,  Thus  saith  the  Lord 
God  of  Israel,  I  brought  up  Israel  out  of  Egypt,  and  delivered 
you  out  of  the  hand  of  the  Egyptians,  and  out  of  the  hand  of 
all  kingdoms,  and  of  them  that  oppressed  you.  And  ye  have 
this  day  rejected  your  God  who  himself  saved  you  out  of  all 
your  adversities  and  your  tribulations,  and  ye  have  said  unto 
Him,  Nay,  but  we  will  have  a  king  over  us. — /.  Sam,  x.  17-19. 

On  another  occasion,  Samuel  said  unto  them : 

"  And  when  ye  saw  that  Nahash,  the  king  of  the  children 
of  Ammon  came  against  you,  ye  said  unto  me.  Nay,  but  a  king 
shall  reign  over  us ;  when  the  Lord  your  God  ivas  your  King! 
Now,  therefore,  behold  the  king  whom  ye  have  chosen,  and 
whom  ye  have  desired!  and  behold,  the  Lord  hath  set  a  king 
over  you.  *  "^  ^'  Now  therefore  stand  still  and  see  this 
great  thing,  which  the  Lord  will  do,  before  your  eyes.  Is  it 
not  wheat  harvest,  to-day  ?  And  I  will  call  unto  the  Lord, 
and  he  shall  send  thunder  and  rain,  that  ye  -may  perceive  and 
see  that  your  ivickedness  is  great,  which  ye  have  done  in  the 
sight  of  the  Lord,  in  asking  you  a  king.  So  Samuel  called 
upon  the  Lord,  and  the  Lord  sent  thunder  and  rain  that  day, 
and  all  the  people  greatly  feared  the  Lord,  and  Samuel.  And 
the  people  said  unto  Samuel,  Pray  for  thy  servants  unto  the 
Lord  thy  God,  that  we  die  not,  for  we  have  added  unto  all  our 
sins  this  evil,  to  ask  us  a  king." — /.  Sam.  xii.  12-19. 

In  answer  to  the  prayers  of  Samuel,  as  the  history  seems  to 
intimate,  God  spared  the  lives  of  the  people,  and  promised 


162  DEMOCRACY  OF  CHRISTIANITY. 

tlicm  His  protection,  notwithstanding  this  instance  of  rebellion, 
provided  they  Avould  obey  Him  in  future,  but  adding,  "  If  ye 
shall  siill  do  wickedly,  ye  shall  be  consumed,  both  ye  and  your 
king."  The  natural  fruit  of  their  folly,  they  were,  however, 
destined  to  reap.  Their  liberties,  subverted  in  a  day,  revolving 
centuries  never  restored.  The  prophetic  warnings  of  Samuel 
were  more  than  realized.  So  far  from  consolidating  the  na- 
tion by  a  stronger  government,  that  very  arrangement  rent  the 
nation  in  twain.  Under  the  democratic  commonw^ealth  they 
had  been,  wdth  temporary  interruptions,  united  for  about  four 
centuries.  Under  the  monarchy  they  were  kept  together  but 
one,  at  the  close  of  which  the  oppressions  predicted  by  Sam- 
uel, and  the  consequent  claims  of  rival  aspirants,  occasioned 
the  revolt  of  the  ten  tribes.  Two  dynasties,  thenceforward, 
perpetuated  the  division.  In  a  little  more  than  two  centuries 
after  this  revolt,  or  three  hundred  after  the  subversion  of  the 
commonwealth,  the  ten  tribes  followed  their  king,  not  to  a  for- 
eign conquest,  but  to  a  returnless  captivity  in  Assyria.  And 
there  their  history  terminates !  In  a  little  more  than  another 
century  the  remaining  two  tribes  followed  their  captive  king 
into  Babylon,  from  whence  only  a  remnant  of  them,  seventy 
years  afterwards,  returned,  but  were  never  permanently  re- 
stored to  their  national  independency  and  security.  From  their 
own  kings  whose  control  they  had  coveted,  and  from  the  kings 
of  the  nations  around  them,  whose  splendor  had  intoxicated 
them,  they  suflered  oppressions  and  received  indignities  that 
furnished  them  with  a  commentary  upon  the  prediction  of 
Samuel,  and  upon  the  corresponding  message,  three  centuries 
and  a  half  afterwards,  by  Hosea — "  /  gave  thee  a  king  in  mine 
anger." — Hosea  xiih  11. 

Thus  we  trace  the  bearings  of  the  institutions  of  Moses  upon 
the  arrangements  of  monarchy — the  relation  of  the  former  to 
the  latter,  w^ith  the  comparative  influences  of  each  upon  the 
character  and  destiny  of  the  Hebrews.  The  history  of  the  de- 
liverance, the  instruction,  the  civilization,  the  religious  culture, 
the  freedom  of  the  children  of  Israel,  is  the  history  of  their 
democratic  training,  their  democratic  institutions,  their  demo- 


DEMOCRACiT  OF  CHRISTIANITY. 


103 


cratic  habits,  activities  and  virtues.  The  history  of  their  cor- 
ruption, decline  and  ruin,  is  the  history  of  their  seduction  by 
the  blandishments  of  surrounding  monarchies,  their  dibtaste  for 
democratic  institutions,  their  clamor  for  a  king,  the  reahzation 
of  their  wishes,  and  the  natural  results  of  all  this  in  their  still 
farther  corruption,  degradation  and  oppression,  under  the 
reign  of  their  own  and  other  kings,  the  exemplars,  for  the  most 
part,  as  well  as  the  scourges  of  their  vices. 


CHAPTER  XII. 


SUM3IARY  VIEW.— CHASMS  IN  THE  HEBREW  IDEA  OF  CIVIL  GOV- 
ERNMENT, AND  ITS  FUNCTIONS. 

We  sum  up,  then,  the  main  features  of  the  Hebrew  or 
Mosaic  commonwealth  by  characterizing-  it  as  a  democra- 
cy of  ihe  strictest  description,  in  which  the  mass  of  the 
people  constituted  the  state,  and  were  charged  with  the 
administration  of  law— either  in  their  local  congregations, 
or  by  judges  elected  by  them— in  divisions  and  subdivi- 
sions down  to  tens,  with  a  general  court  of  appeal  or  ref- 
erence, elected  in  like  manner,  with  the  addition  of  the 
heaven-appointed  priest,  who,  in  the  absence  of  the  art  of 
printing,  kept  the  authorized  copy  of  the  law.  The  judi- 
ciary, as  thus  described,  constituted  the  sum  total  of  their 
political  organization— there  being  no  legislature,  no  king, 
no  president,  no  governor,  no  supreme  chief  magistrate 
no  central  government,  cabinet,  or  council  of  any  sort  be- 
yond or  beside  the  general  court  of  reference  already  de- 
scribed, and  whose  functions  were  purely  judicial.  Hav- 
ing no  legislature  to  guide  them,  the  courts  of  justice  were 
shut  to  the  brief  but  comprehensive  code  of  Moses — 
amountino-  in  reality  to  a  divinely  inspired  digest  and  ex- 


164  DEMOCRACY    OF    CHRISTIAKITY. 

emplification  of  Common  Law — the  substance  and  spirit 
of  which  was  comprised  in  the  one  mandate  to  "judge  the 
people  with  just  judgment." 

Thus,  as  far  as  possible,  the  old  autocratic  and  heathen 
notion  of  law,  as  being  the  creature  of  human  volition,  ca- 
price, enactment,  decretal,  convention,  convenience,  or 
compromise,  was  displaced;  and  in  its  stead  was  intro- 
duced the  true  idea  of  laAv  as  revealed  in  the  will  of  God, 
as  founded  on  the  immutably  True,  the  Right,  the  Equi- 
table, the  Just,  and  as  constituting  a  fixed  and  definite 
science,  that  could  be  taught,  studied,  and  learned,  the 
same  in  all  places,  and  at  all  times. 

In  the  process  of  doing  this,  and  in  order  to  the  com- 
pleteness and  full  impression  of  the  idea,  there  was  the 
the  necessary  absence  ot  a  human  legislature,  a  human 
king;  nay,  as  it  would  seem,  of  a  human  chief  magistrate 
of  any  description,  at  a  central  point,  over  the  whole  na- 
tion, to  whom  the  people  could  reverently  look  up,  and  in 
whom,  like  the  nations  around  them,  they  could  find  a 
substitute  for  their  God  ! 

The  Mosaic  idea  of  civil  government  is  thus  distinguish- 
ed from  all  others,  by  its  significant  chasms,  its  memora- 
ble and  instructive  blanks,  its  total  and  resolute  ignorance 
of  any  '•'' government''''  as  standing  in  the  place  of  God  over 
the  people — of  any  human  government  distinguishable 
from  the  people  themselves. 

In  like  manner  and  from  the  same  necessity,  the  appro- 
priate sphere  of  civil  government,  its  boundaries,  its  field, 
its  functions  were  correspondingly  circumscribed.  From 
the  blanks  alreadj^  noticed,  other  blanks  resulted  as  a 
matter  of  course.  As  there  was  no  legislative  body,  no 
king,  no  autocratic  council,  no  overshadowing  central 
government,  in  any  shape,  distinct  from  the  people  them- 
selves, to  whom  the  people  could  look  up  for  that  sort  of 
•emi-supernatural  assistance  and  guidance  that  other  na- 
(lons  expected  of  their  governments  (and  that  the  Hebrews 
sought  when  they  asked  for  a  king)  so  there  was  no  room 


DEMOCRACY  OF  CHKlSTIAiMTY.  16 

left  for  the  necromancy  and  legerdemain  of  that  empirical 
statesmanship  which  constitutes  so  large  a  portion  of  the 
activities  of  civil  government  in  our  times,  VvHth  the  train 
of  artificial  policy,  temporary  expedients,  class  legisla- 
tions, and  changeful  and  shallow  experiments  that  corrupt 
and  delude  the  nations  whom  they  despoil  and  oppress — 
that  bring  them  into  an  abject  dependence  on  their  ^^  gov- 
ernments^^  for  that  assistance  which  they  can  receive  only 
through  their  own  individual  self-directed  industry  and 
economy,  from  the  good  providence  and  overflowing 
bounty  of  their  God, 

In  all  the  laws  and  regulations  provided  for  the  Hebrews 
there  was  nothing  looking  in  the  direction  either  of  a  pro- 
tective or  of  a  revenue  tariff,  or  ot  both  combined.  And 
the  same  Divine  Wisdom  that  left  this  arrangement  a 
blank  in  the  Hebrew  policy,  took  care  to  institute  no  legis- 
lative body,  no  autocratic  council,  no  grand  monarch,  no 
central  government  of  any  description,  to  whom  the  peo- 
ple could  look  for  any  such  arrangements,  or  who  could 
give  rise  to  any  such  measures  at  any  future  period,  on 
plea  of  changed  circumstances  or  necessities. 

Had  the  Hebrews  remained  faithful  to  their  institutions 
to  the  present  day,  without  any  rebellious  revolutions,  and 
had  their  general  obedience  to  God  secured  a  continuance 
of  His  favor,  there  is  no  reason  to  think  that  their  institu- 
tion of  Civil  Government  would  have  been  changed,  except 
so  far  as  the  termination  of  the  symbolical  dispensation, 
the  institution  of  tlie  Christian  Church,  and  the  fall  of  the 
middle  wall  of  partition  between  Jews  and  Gentiles,  would 
have  displaced  what  was  preparatory  and  peculiar  await- 
ing those  events.  If  this  view  be  correct,  the  Hebrew 
commonwealth  perpetuated  to  the  present  day,  and  modi- 
fied only  \\\  its  ecclesiastical  polity  and  in  its  extended 
fraternity  to  all  the  nations  of  the  earth,  would  have  pre- 
sented us  with  a  nation  acting  on  the  principles  of  univer- 
sal and  unrestricted  free-trade.  Could  the  Jews  now  be- 
come christianized,  return  to  their  own   country,    and  re- 


166  DEMOCRACV    OF    CHRISTIANITY. 

organize  their  commonwealth  on  the  Mosaic  model,  so  far  as 
the  clear  light  of  the  gospel  would  permit,  the  same  result 
would  be  reached.  The  code  of  Moses  would  supply 
them  with  no  tariff — the  spirit  of  Christianity  would  re- 
quire none,  (not  to  say,  here,  that  it  would  forbid  any) — 
and  they  would  have  no  legislature  or  autocrat  to  enact 
any,  nor  could  it  be  done  without  a  total  subversion  of 
their  polity, and  the  introduction  of  a  rival  idea  of  law. 
According  to  the  Hebrew  idea  of  law  and  of  legislative 
power,  so  laboriously  and  skilfully  taught  them  both  in 
their  early  training  and  m  their  institutions,  no  such  thing 
as  a  tariff  of  duties  on  imported  merchandize  could,  by 
any  possibity,  be  legislated  or  decreed  into  valid  law,  not 
beino-  of  the  material  of  which  law  consists. 

The  same  course  of  remarks  might  be  made  in  respect 
to  all  those  class  legislations,  legalized  monopolies,  exclu- 
sive privileges  and  inequalities  that  disfigure  and  swell 
the  statute  books  of  modern  nations.  The  Mosaic  code 
made  no  provision  for  any  thing  of  the  kind,  being  simply 
occupied  with  executing  judgment  (justice)  between  a  man 
and  his  neighbor — protecting  every  man's  rights  and 
taking  for  granted  that,  with  this  protection  he  was  com- 
petent to  direct  his  own  industry,  select  his  own  avoca- 
tions, and  take  care  of  his  own  interests.  If  there  are  seeming 
exceptions  to  this  remark  they  are  only  such,  confirming 
the  rule,  and  resting  on  the  temporary  and  the  transient 
for  their  temporary  basis. 

Whatever  of  ordinary  taxation  was  provided  for,  under 
the  Mosaic  code,  was  provided  for  in  the  form  of  a  direct 
tax  apportioned  on  income.  (Deut.  xviJi.  20,  21.)  Wheth- 
er this  tithe  were  at  all  for  civil  purposes,  and  whether  it 
were  to  be  forcibly  collected,  are  points  that  may  admit  of 
argument,  and  will  be  glanced  at,  perhaps,  in  another  con- 
nexion. It  is  manifest  that  their  civil  government  could  not 
have  been  expensive,  being  only  a  judiciary  on  the  simplest 
and  cheapest  plan.  In  our  modern  estimates  of  the  expenses 
of  civil  crovernment,  we  do  not  include  court-fees  and  the 


DEMOCRACY  OF  CHRISTIANITY. 


167 


costs  of  liticration.  Tt  is  not  easy  to  see  that  the  Hebrews 
in  time  of  peace  had  any  other  expenses  of  government, 
during  the  commonwealth,  than  those  of  the  judiciary  ; 
and  judicial  services  on  the  Hebrew  plan,  if  not  entirely 
gratuitous,  could  not  have  been  costly.  There  was  no 
king,  council,  president,  governor,  or  legislature,  either 
to  be  salaried  or  to  levy  taxes.  The  tithe,  however  ex- 
pended, was  not  levied  at  human  discretion,  or  by  vote  or 
decree  of  the  receivers.  Divine  Wisdom,  in  that  case, 
fixed  the  amount,  and  there  was  no  state  or  national  gov- 
ernment to  add  to  it  afterwards. 

There  was  no  navy  or  standing  army  to  be  supported, 
and  no  provision  was  made  for  the  expenditure,  in  the  code 
of  Moses  5  neither  was  any  man  compelled  to  serve  in 
war.     (Deut.  xx.  5-8.) 

Neither  was  there  any  tax  for  purposes  of  education, 
unless  indeed  the  tithes  of  the  priests  and  Levites  (peculiar 
to  the  typical  dispensation  and  ending  with  it)  be  claimed 
to  have  been  of  that  character.  Much  is  indeed  said  of 
the  education  of  children,  but  the  connection  and  the  man- 
ner do  not  convey  the  impression  that  civil  government 
was  intrusted  with  the  charge  of  it.  A  civil  government 
as  a  central  and  overshadowing  body,  distinct  from  the 
people,  did  not  exist,  and  was  not  authorized— either  king, 
president,  governor,  council  or  legislature—and  conse- 
quently there  were  to  be  no  such  dignitaries  to  superin- 
tend public  education,  to  direct  its  modes,  to  authorize  its 
teachers,  to  levy  taxes  for  supporting  them,  or  to  appoint 
the  overseers  or  superintendents  in  the  different  tribes, 
cities,  towns,  and  villages.  No  one  will  suppose  that  the 
judiciary,  as  organized"  among  the  Hebrews,  had  the  su- 
perintendency  of  education.  No  such  record  is  found,  no 
such  fact  existed,  and  no  such  action  was  provided  for. 
We  hear  indeed  of  schools  of  the  prophets  that  appear  to 
have  been  voluntarily  supported,  and  partly  at  least  by 
the  manual  labor  of  bjth  tutors  and  pupils  ;  but  without 
the  least  intimation  of  their  being  sppported  by  liie  pub- 


J.68  DEMOCRACY  OF    CHRISTIANITY. 

lie  funds,  even  in  the  days  of  the  Ivings.   (I  Kings  ii.  3-5  ; 
vi.  1-5.)    The  Mosaic  law  of  education  runs  thus  : 

"And  these  words  which  1  command  thee,  shall  be  in 
thy  heart,  and  thou  shalt  teach  them  diligently  unto  thy 
children,  and  thou  shait  talk  of  them  when  thou  sittest  in 
thine  house,  and  when  thou  walkest  by  the  way,  and 
when  thou  liest  down,  and  wiien  thou  risest  up." — Deut, 
vi.  6-7  ;  also  xi.  19. 

The  language  seems  to  refer  the  responsibility  of  edu- 
cation to  the  head  of  the  family  rather  thin  to  the  state. 
We  notice  these  facts,  of  which  the  reader  can  make  such 
use  as  he  judges  proper,  in  disposing  of  the  remarkable 
blanks  in  the  Mosaic  idea  of  civil  government,  as  com- 
pared with  the  views  commonly  entertained. 

Beside  the  tithe  on  income  there  was,  however,  a  poll  tax, 
assessed  by  express  divine  command,  on  one  particular  oc- 
casion, recorded  in  the  thirtieth  chapter  of  Exodus.  The 
male  population  capable  of  military  service  were  number- 
ed, and  each  one,  rich  or  poor,  was  amerced  in  the  sum 
of  half  a  sheckel — about  thirty-five  cents — as  •'  an  offering 
to  the  Lord,  to  make  an  atonement  for  their  souls."  This 
was  appropriated  to  the  service  of  the  tabernacle  of  the 
congregation.  The  smallness  of  the  sum  prevented  it 
from  being  burthensome  to  any.  The  symbolical  refer- 
ence to  a  spiritual  redemption,  an  atonement,  a  ransom, 
conveyed  an  impressive  recognition  of  the  equal  value  of 
the  souls,  whether  of  rich  or  poor,  to  be  redeemed,  and  of 
the  merciful  provision  which  places  that  redemption  with- 
in the  reach  of  all^ — another  lesson  of  human  equality  and 
brotherhood,  and  of  the  impartial  care  of  the  Great  Father 
of  all  men. 


DEMOCRACY  OF  CHRISTIAMTV.  169 

CHAPTER  Xlll- 

THE  ECCLESIASTICAL  POLITY  OF  THE  HEBREWS, 

The  Ecclesiastical  arrangements  of  the  Hebrews,  as 
established  by  Moses,  claim  attention  in  this  discussion, 
not  merely  on  account  of  their  own  intrinsic  importance, 
but  in  reference  to  the  bearing  they  may  be  supposed  to 
have  upon  the  laws  and  institutions  of  the  common 
wealth. 

Hitherto  we  have  confined  our  attention  to  that  part  of 
the  Mosaic  code  which  we  denominate  the  Civil,  in  dis- 
tinction from  the  Ecclesiastipal,  and  we  have  carefully 
excluded  from  the  former  whatever  we  supposed  to  be  in- 
cluded properly  in  the  latter,  not  excepting  those  religious 
and  ritual  canons  that  appear  to  have  been  authoritatively 
enforced  by  the  civil  magistrate.  We  have  done  this  to 
prevent  needless  confusion,  and  because  we  wished  to 
exhibit  the  civil  institutions  of  Moses  as  they  would  ap- 
pear without  the  ecclesiastical  ingredients  which  we  be- 
lieved to  have  been  temporary  in  their  design,  and  inten- 
ded to  have  been  done  away  at  the  coming  of  the  Messiah, 
and  on  the  completion  of  the  great  work  which  those  pre- 
paratory institutions  symbolized.  Of  this  omission  we 
have  given  occasional  notice  as  vve  passed  along,  and  have 
intimated  our  intention  to  supply  it  in  its  proper  place. 
Having  disposed  of  the  former  part  of  the  discussion,  so 
far  as  it  could  be  done  without  attending  to  the  latter,  we 
now  come  to  examine  it,  as  was  proposed,  and  is  need- 
ful. It  may  be  thought  by  the  reader  that  the  democratic 
aspect  of  the  civil  code  and  polity  when  separately  con- 
sidered, might  differ  wid£ly,  perhaps,  from  the  aspect  of 
the  ecclesiastical  polity,  and  likewise  from  that  of  the 
civil,  when  botii  of  them  shall  be  contemplated  as  combined. 
This  apprehension  we  shall  now  have  occasion  to  test. 

There  is  perhaps  a  common  impression  that  the   eccie- 


170  DE3I0CRACY  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

siastical  polity  of  the  Hebreu's  was  at  the  farthest  possible 
remove  from  any  thing  democratic,  and  that  the  union  of 
the  ecclesiastical  polity  with  the  civil,  was  a  still  farther 
illustration  of  such  departure.    It  is  well  known  that  those 
in  the  Christian  community  who  are  partial  to  hierarchal 
arrangements,  and  who  feel  pressed  with  the  democratic 
aspect  of  the  New  Testament  churches,  are  wont  to  resort, 
eagerly,  to  the  Jewish  priesthood  for  the  precedent  and  the 
supposed  pattern  of  their  usages.  The  advocates  of  enforced 
reii  Tioas  establishments,  or  the  union  of  the  civil  with  the 
eccfesiastical  power,  are  accustomed  likewise,  in  the  same 
manner,  to  revert  back  to  the  Old  Testament  dispensation 
for  the  supposed  model  and  warranty  of  their  institutions. 
With  how  much  propriety  such  appeals  from  the  manifest 
bearing  of  the  newer,  the  perfected    institutions   of  relig- 
gion  may  be  made  to  the  earlier,  the  obviously  and  avow- 
edly preparatory,  is  one  question  that  deserves  our  atten- 
tion.    And  another  is,  with  how  much  success  the  appeal, 
though  never  so  legitimate,  could  be  urged  in  vindication 
of  the  usages  and  institutions  so  much  desired.     On  each 
of     these    questions    we    shall    seek    light    as    we    pass 
along,  while  making  it  our   main   endeavor  to   ascertain 
and  exhibit  the  ecclesiastical  polity  of  the  Hebrews,  and 
its  connexion  with  the  civil  polity,  just  as   it   was,    along 
with    the    true    ground   and    reason    of    those    arrange- 
ments, whether  temporary  or  permanent. 

In  the  commencement  of  our  examination  of  the 
institutions  of  Moses,  we  took  occasion  to  remark 
upon  the  necessary  and  important  distinction  between 
the  permanent  and  the  temporary,  the  universal  and 
economy  which  was  to  be  regarded  as  preparatory 
the  peculiar.  We  noticed  that  aspect  of  the  xMosaic 
to  a  better  dispensation,  "  a  shadow  of  good  things  to 
come,"  as  symbolical  and  prophetic  representation  by  rit- 
uals, priesthoods,  and  propitiatory  sacrifices,  which  on  the 
coming  of  the  one  Great  High  Priest  the  offering  of  the 
one  Great  Sacrifice  for  sin,  was  to  ''vanish  away."       We 


DEMOCRACY  OF  CHRISTIANITY.  171 

hinted  indirectly  at  this,  and  now  revert  to  it  again,  for 
the  purpose  of  showing  and  of  keeping  in  mind,  one  fact 
of  vital  importance  to  the  success  of  our  investigations, 
namely,  the  temporary  character  of  the  peculiar  ecclesias- 
tical arrangements  of  the  Hebrews,  and  their  termination 
at  that  precise  point  when  their  end  was  accomplished,  in 
pre-figuring  the  advent  and  expiatory  death  of  the  Messi- 
ah. The  writer  of  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews,  in  the 
New  Testament,  unfolds  clearly  the  whole  subject,  and 
insists  upon  it  with  great  force.  If  the  view  there  taken 
be  admitted,  then  the  distinction  we  have  drawn  becomes 
apparent,  and  that  which  in  our  consideration  of  the  civil 
code  of  iMoses,  we  have  left  out^  as  temporary,  is  ascer- 
tained to  have  been  so.  Otherwise  the  rituals,  the  priest- 
hoods, the  ecclesiastical  polity  of  the  Hebrews,  become  for 
aught  we  know,  as  permanent  and  as  universal  as  any 
part  of  the  code,  including  the  decalogue,  and  we  must 
take  it  all  or  none,  just  as  it  is,  and- include  the  whole  of 
it  or  none  at  all,  in  our  version  and  exposition  of  Moses. 

This,  then,  is  our  apology,  if  any  be  needed,  for  introducing 
Avhat  may  at  first  sight  appear  to  be  an  abstruse  and  contested 
point  in  theology,  in  no  wise  involved  in  a  discussion  of  the 
democracy  of  Moses.  The  reader,  who  will  of  course  examine 
the  institutions  of  Moses,  Avith  his  own  eyes,  must  concede  to 
us  the  same  privilege,  when  we  confess,  frankly,  that  we  should 
despair  of  finding  any  intelligible  clue  to  them,  or  of  bearing  to 
decide  how  much  of  democracy  or  of  anti-democrac}"  is  to  be 
predicated  of  them,  unless  Ave  may  take  along  Avith  us  the 
Epistle  to  the  Hebrews,  and  kindred  poj-tions  of  Scripture,  to 
tell  us  what  iMoses  meant^  by  those  hereditary  priesthoods^ 
AA'ith  the  enforced  rituals  and  religious  observances  connected 
Avith  them,  and  for  Avhat  purposes  and  how  long  he  intended 
them  to  be  preserved.  If  they  Avere  to  be  permanent,  (as  tlie 
modern  Jews  think,  Avho  reject  the  doctrine  of  the  Epistle  to 
the  Hebrews,)  then  Ave  may  arrive  at  one  conclusion,  but  if, 
as  that  Epistle  teaches,  they  Avere  transient,  and  if  Ave  can  see 
why  they  were  so,  then  Ave  may  arrive  at  another.     If  the  New 


172  DEMOCKACi^    OF  CHRISTIANITY. 

Testament,  as  all  Christians  believe,  contains  a  clearer  and 
more  mature  and  full  revelation  of  the  divine  plan  than  the 
Old,  then  the  Old  is  to  be  interpreted  in  the  light  of  the  New. 
And  if  the  New  Testament,  as  is  generally  admitted,  breathes 
the  spirit  of  democracy,  then  that  same  spirit  cannot  be  sup- 
posed to  have  been  outraged  in  the  Old,  though  perhaps  less 
clearly  and  fully  developed  and  exemplified. 

Conceiving  as  we  do  that  the  involved  and  enigmatical  dra- 
ma of  the  Old  Dispensation  runs  onward  into  the  New,  and 
that  the  grand  denouement  of  the  plot  is  to  be  found  no  where 
but  in  the  one  Sacrifice  of  the  true  High  Priest  on  Calvary,  it 
would  be  frivolous  for  us  to  approach  the  intricacies  of  the  Old 
Dispensation,  especially  its  Levitical  priesthoods  and  sacrifices, 
(symbolical  and  prophetic  as  we  deem  them)  with  any  pre- 
tence of  exhibiting  their  character,  or  their  bearing  upon  the 
civil  polity  of  Moses,  unless  we  could  be  permitted  to  bring  to 
them  the  only  key  that  we  consider  competent  to  unlock  and 
open  them.  The  reader,  whatever  his  religious  sentiments 
may  be,  is  entitled  to  know  the  grounds  upon  which  we  treat 
a  part  of  the  Mosaic  economy  as  transient  and  a  part  of  it  as 
permanent,  and  the  rule  by  which  we  discriminate  between 
the  one  and  the  other.  Those  grounds  and  that  rule  may  not 
be  satisfactory  data  for  him,  but  if  he  would  understand  our 
analysis  of  Moses,  he  must  consent  to  be  told  that  they  are 
satisfactory  to  us.  If  his  rejection  of  our  theological  views 
constrains  him  to  make  Moses  less  democratic,  less  in  unison 
with  Jesus  and  the  apostles — or,  if  he  can  discover  some  other 
method  of  avoiding  such  a  conclusion,  he  will,  in  either  case, 
be  at  liberty  to  do  so.  All  we  ask  is,  that  he  will  accompany 
us  to  our  solution,  and  judge  for  himself,  whether  the  key  we 
use  is  not  conformed  to  the  lock,  and  Avhether  he  can  discover 
a  better  one. 

To  understand  the  Levitical  priesthood  we  must  look  back- 
ward, as  well  as  forward,  and  ponder  each  successive  act  of 
the  drama.  The  fall  of  our  first  parents,  the  apostacy  of  the 
whole  human  family,  the  penal  sentence  of  the  law,  the  early 
intim.ations  of  a  future  gospel  of  deliverance  in  the  seed  of  the 


DEMOCKACr   OF  CI1RISTIA^'TY■.  IVS 

woraHii,  that  was  to  bruise  tlie  serpent's  liead,  the  symbohc 
sacrifices  of  Abel  and  of  Noah,  all  these  have  a  chronological 
and  philosophical  connexion  with  the  Leviticus  of  Moses.  AVith- 
out  the  former,  the  lat'er  could  not  have  been.  AVithout  un- 
derstanding the  antecedent,  Ave  shall  not  make  ourselves  mas- 
ters of  the  consequent.  There  is  a  sublime  progression  and 
development  in  the  divine  method  of  dealing  with  our  lapsed 
race.  The  family  institution,  without  any  other  Church,  with- 
out any  other  State,  appears  to  have  been  the  divine  school, 
for  the  antedeluvians.  Then  came  the  brief  charter  of  civil 
government  to  "Noah  and  his  sons,"  The  covenant  with 
Abraham  and  his  posterity  was  the  incipient  measure  for  the 
oro-anization  of  both  a  Church  and  a  Commonwealth  that  were 

o 

to  have  their  common  origin  in  a  Family  and  to  be  defined  and 
and  perpetuated  by  family  descent.  This  organization  was 
perfected  under  Moses ;  and  this,  in  turn,  (so  far  as  forms  of 
worship  and  ecclesiastical  polity  were  concerned)  was,  in  due 
time,  to  be  superseded  by  the  Christian  Church.  So  that  the 
Levitical  economy  was  an  intermediate  step  between  the  Pa- 
triarchal and  the  Apostolic. 

In  the  beginning  there  was  only  the  Hneal  Family. 
In  the  sequel  there  was  to  be  the  spiritual  Church 
with  a  membership  born  not  of  the  flesh,  and  reckoned 
not  by  descent  of  blood.  In  this  intermediate  organization 
it  was  natural  and  perhaps  necessary  that  the  idea  of  family 
affinity  should  be  connected  with  and  symbolize  that  of  the  af- 
finity of  a  common  faith.  The  seed  of  Abraham  and  of  Israel, 
according  to  the  flesh,  were  specially  called  upon  to  become 
heirs  of  the  faith  of  Abraham  and  Israel.  Having  voluntarily 
entered  into  solemn  covenant  to  be  such,  they  were,  in  outward 
arrangement,  to  be  treated  as  such.  And  thus  the  seed  ac- 
cording to  the  flesh  symbolized  and  pre-figured  the  true  seed 
according  to  the  Spirit,  and,  at  the  same  time,  included  it.  In 
this  way,  the  true  idea  of  a  Spiritual  Church  was,  at  length, 
elaborated  in  the  Hebrew  mind,  and  thence  was  communica- 
ted to  other  nations;  and  they  were  prepared  to  be  told  and 
to  understand  that   "  all  are  not  Israel  that  Avere  of  Israel," 


174  DEiaOCUACif    OF    CHRISTIANITY. 

(Rom.  ix.  6,)  and  that  those  who  follow  the  faith  of  Abraham 
are  the  true  heirs  of  the  promise. 

In  the  Hebrew  or  Mosaic  economy  the  descendants  of  Abra- 
ham and  of  Israel  were  to  stand  for  the  Church,  the  chosen 
people  of  God.  Like  the  Christian  Church  that  it  typified,  it 
was  to  be,  in  a  measure,  the  salt  of  the  earth,  the  light  of  the 
world,  to  whom  were  committed  the  promises  and  the  oracles 
of  God,  the  light  of  divine  truth,  destined  to  enlighten,  at  length, 
the  whole  earth.  The  Hebrews  were  set  forth  to  be  what,  in 
in  fact  they  have  been,  the  moral  and  religious  teachers  of  the 
civilized  world.  The  Messiah  himself  was  to  be  one  of  them, 
and  to  set  up  his  spiritual  kingdom  among  them,  selecting  the 
first  teachers  and  propagators  of  Christianity  from  among  those 
who  had  best  learned  the  symbolical  lessons  of  Moses,  the 
most  profound  and  successful  of  whom  was  Paul. 

By  these  divinely  commissioned  Hebrew  teachers  of  Christi- 
anity we  are  told  that  the  priesthoods  and  the  sacrifices  of  the 
Old  economy  were  typical  or  symbolical  of  the  One  High 
Priesthood  and  universal  Sacrifice  of  the  New;  that  when,  in 
the  fulness  of  time,  the  divine  personage  symbolized  made  his 
appearance  and  performed  his  predicted  work,  "  an  high  priest 
forever  after  the  order  of  Melchizedec,"  "having  an  unchange- 
able priesthood,"  then  the  Levitical  and  Aaronic  priest- 
hood, having  accomplished  its  mission,  "  waxed  old  and  was 
ready  to  vanish  away,"  the  first  being  "  removed  to  establish 
the  second:'— Heb.  vi.  20,  vii.  24,  viii.  13,  x.  9,  &c. 

Under  the  old  economy,  the  high  priest  officiated  as  the  symbol- 
ical mediator  of  that  covenant,  whereby  the  people  were  impres- 
sively taught  their  own  moral  defilement  and  unfitness  to  ap- 
proach the  Infinite  purity  without  the  intervening  mediatorship 
of  the  Messiah  who  was  to  come.  Under  the  New  economy 
Jesus  Christ,  the  Mediator  of  the  New  Covenant  was  fully  re- 
vealed, and  thenceforward  the  typical  high  priesthood  of  the 
Aaronic  succession  was  abolished,  and  believers  encouraged  to 
"  enter  with  boldness  into  the  holiest,  by  the  blood  of  Jesus,  by  a 
new  and  living  way  which  he  hath  consecrated  for  us  through  the 
veil,  that  is  to  say,  his  flesh."— He^^.  x.  19-20.     And   accord- 


DEMOCRACY    OF    CUKISTIAKITV. 


115 


ingly  when  Jesus  expired  on  the  cross,  "  the  veil  of  the  temple 
was  rent  in  twain  from  the  top  to  the  bottom,"  in  token  that 
the  symbol  was  now  to  be  removed,  and  not  long  after  the  tem- 
ple itself  was  destroyed,  in  fulfilment  of  divine  prediction, 
the  holy  city  trodden  under  foot,  the  Levitical  priesthood 
scattered  the  winds  of  heaven,  and  the  daily  sacrifice  taken 
away. 

If  this  be  not  the  true  solution  of  the  Levitical  enigma — if 
this  be  not  its  meaning,  its  office,  its  nature,  its  design,  its  use, 
its  mission,  its  history,  its  termination — upon  what  theory,  by 
what  analogies,  in  the  light  of  what  prophecies,  what  Scripture 
declarations,  or  by  what  philosophy,  shall  the  solution  be 
sought?     What  did  the  system  teach?     And  why,  if  it  were 


ever 


needed  at  all,  is  it  not  needed  now  ? 


If  this  be  not  the  true  account  of  the  Leviticus  of  Moses 
what  account  shall  be  given  of  it?  Shall  w^e  come  to  the 
deistical  conclusion  that  it  is  only  a  relic  of  ancient  barbarism 
and  superstition?  Or  to  the  conclusion  of  an  inveterate  Juda- 
ism, that  clamors  for  its  priesthoods  and  its  sacrifices  still, 
though  its  Aaronic  succession  is  lost,  and  no  son  of  Abraham 
or  of  Jacob  can  stand  up,  and  lay  claim  under  the  law  of  Mo- 
ses, to  the  office  of  High  Priest  ? 

If  such  be  not  the  Leviticus  of  Moses,  then  its  hereditary 
priesthoods,  its  enforced  rituals,  no  longer  to  be  regarded  either 
as  prophetic  or  symbolic,  must  stand  as  literal  but  inexplicable 
verities,  perpetual  but  meaningless  institutions,  interminable 
and  ultimate  but  forever  unintelhgible  facts.  Then,  likewise, 
we  have  the  continued  separation  of  the  Jew^s  from  the  Gen- 
tiles, by  Divine  authority,  and  the  exclusion  of  the  latter  from 
the  chief  blessings  promised  them  through  Abraham,  notwith- 
standing the  repeated  intimations  of  the  ancient  prophets  in 
their  favor.  The  task  of  bringing  light  out  of  such  darkness, 
order  out  of  such  confusion,  or  harmony  out  of  such  discord, 
w^e  could  not  have  the  courage  to  attempt.  Nor  could  we  un- 
dertake to  reconcile  the  ecclesiastical  polity  of  the  Hebrews, 
as  thus  construed,  with  their  civil  code  or  to  challenge  for  it 
the  democratic  character  that,  everywhere  else,  has  so  signally 


176  DEMOCRACY    OF    CHRlSTlAKITY. 

appeared.  The  wards  of  the  lock  do  not  yield  to  such  a  key. 
The  secrets  of  the  inner  sanctuary  are  all  unrevealed 

We  must  be  permitted  then,  to  avail  ourselves  of  the  key 
furnished  by  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews,  and  with  which  the 
rich  treasures  there  exhibited,  were  disclosed.  Understanding 
the  Levitical  economy  to  have  been  Avhat  the  writer  of  that 
Epistle  makes  it,  a  far  difterent  scene  opens  on  our  vision. 
The  Levitical  and  Aaronic  priesthood  represented,  not  the  dig- 
nity of  the  house  of  Aaron,  or  of  the  house  of  Levi,  exalted 
above  their  equal  brethren,  but  only  shadowed  forth,  as  in  an 
instructive  allegory,  the  priestly  dignity  of  Jesus  Christ,  to 
whose  higher  representative  Melchizedec,  Levi  himself,  as  it 
were,  in  the  loins  of  his  father  Abraham,  paid  tithes,  with  the 
rest  of  his  hrethren  ! 

"  For  [says  the  writer]  it  is  evident  that  our  Lord  sprang 
out  of  Juda,  of  which  tribe  Moses  spake  nothing  concerning 
priesthood.  And  it  is  yet  far  more  evident,  for  that  after  the 
similitude  of  Melchizedec  there  ariseth  another -pY'iest,  who  was 
made,  not  after  the  law  of  a  carnal  commandment,  but  after 
the  power  of  an  endless  life.  For  he  testifieth.  Thou  art  a 
priest  forerer,  after  the  order  of  Melchizedec." — Heh.  vii.  14-17. 

Thus  fades  the  fancied  glory  of  the  Hebrew  priesthood, 
and  thus  its  artificial  pride  withers,  Avhen  its  true  mean- 
ing is  revealed,  in  the  light  of  the  cross  of  Christ.  It  was  sim- 
ply a  method  of  teaching,  and  the  lesson  taught  was  the  very 
reverse  of  any  thing  like  the  exaltation  of  man  over  man — it 
was  the  lesson  that  all  men,  the  entire  brotherhood  of  the  hu- 
man family,  polluted  as  they  were  by  sin,  stood  in  need  of  one 
and  the  same  High  Priest.  Mediator,  and  Sacrifice,  Jesus 
Christ.  The  peisons  selected  to  teach  this  symbohcal  lesson 
were  themselves  in  need  of  the  teaching,  and  to  them  as  well 
as  to  their  equal  -brethren  was  the  lesson  given,  for  "  they; 
needed  daily,  to  offer  up  sacrifices, /r^^; /or  their  own  sins 
and  then  for  the  sins  of  the  people." — v.  27. 

As  well  might  the  person  who  was  designated  to  set 
up  the  brazen  serpent  in  the  wilderness  exalt  himself  over 
his  brethren  on  account  of  that  circumstance — as  well 
might  the  man  appointed  to  hold  up  a  book  or  picture  for 


DE310CRACY  OF  CHKISTIAMTY.  177 

the  use  of  his  brethren,  or  to  carry  them  a  pitcher  of  cold 
water  when  they  were  thirsty,  attempt  to  lord  it  over 
them,  and  swell  with  conscious  dignity  on  the  merit  of  su- 
perior caste,  as  for  a  high  priest  of  the  Aaronic  succession 
to  sit  up  similar  pretensions  on  account  of  his  work.  If 
he  understood  his  vocation,  he  would  count  himself  "  ser- 
vant of  all."  And  lest  this  matter  should  be  misunder- 
stood, God  took  care  that  the  Great  High  Priest  thus  ty- 
pified should  not  spring  out  of  Levi  but  out  of  Judah,  of 
which  tribe  Moses  spake  nothing  concerning  the  priesthood. 
Still  farther,  he  should  be  after  the  succession  of  one  to 
whom  Levi  had  paid  tithes,  and  not  after  the  order  of  Aaron! 
All  this,  as  the  writer  of  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews  well 
knew,  would  grate  harshly  on  the  aristocratic  ears  of  the 
inflated  Jewish  priesthood,  who  totally  misunderstood 
their  position.  But  in  no  other  way  than  by  this  humili- 
ating and  truly  democratic  lesson  could  he  begin  to  teach 
them  what  their  own  priesthood  boasted  meant.  Until  they 
could  be  made  to  see  that  it  did  not  exalt  them  above  their 
brethren,  they  could  not  be  made  to  understand  its  true 
meaning.  And  until  the  Hebrew  people  could  be  made  to 
see  this  and  cease  their  idolatrous  veneration  of  their  sym- 
bolical priesthood,  they  could  never  appreciate  the  one 
high  priesthood  of  Christ,  nor  receive  the  benefits  of  his 
sacrifice. 

Thus  instructed  in  respect  not  only  to  the  design  and 
significancy  of  the  Hebrew  priesthcod,  but  in  respect,  like- 
wise, to  the  consequent  relation  of  the  priests  to  their 
equal  brethren,  we  are  prepared,  as  we  could  not  other- 
wise be,  to  take  up  in  detail  the  provisions  of  the  Mosaic 
code  on  this  subject,  and  dispose  of  them  in  the  light 
of  the  principles  and  objects  upon  which  tiie  institu- 
tion was  founded.  In  no  other  way  can  the  details  of 
any  other  institution  be  satisfactorily  explained,  especially 
after  the  lapse  of^ages,  and  its  long  disuse  or  abroga- 
tion. 

First,  then,  we  are  to  inquire,  after  the  elements  and  the 


1Y8  DEMOCKACV  OF  CHRISTIANITY. 

organization  of  the  Hebrew  priestliood,  as  provided  for  by 

the  polity  of  Moses. 

"And  thou  shalt  take  unto  thee  Aaron,  thy  brother, 
and  his  sons  with  him,  from  among  the  children  of  Israel, 
that  he  may  minister  unto  me  in  the  priest's  office,  even 
Aaron,  Nadab  and  Abihu,  Eleazur  and  Ithamar,  Aaron's 
sons." — Ex.  xxviii.  1:  xxix.  ],  kc. 

An  account  of  the  consecration  of  Aaron  and  his  sons, 
by  Moses,  in  the  presence  of  all  the  congregation,  will  be 
found  in  the  eighth  chapter  of  Leviticus.  They  were 
washed  with  water;  Aaron  was  clothed  with  the  priestly 
robes,  and  girded  with  the  ephod,  and  he  put  the  breast- 
plate upon  him,  the  Urim  and  the  Thummim,  the  Mitre, 
the  golden  plate,  the  holy  crown,  as  the  Lord  com- 
manded Moses.  He  was  then  anointed  with  the  holy  oil 
and  sprinkled  with  the  blood  of  the  bullock,  the  sin-offer- 
ing. 

In  the  seventeenth  chapter  of  Numbers  we  have  an  ac- 
count of  the  method  God  took,  in  the  sight  of  the  people, 
to  designate  whom  he  had  chosen  for  the  peculiar  ser- 
vice of  the  symbolical  priesthood  and  tilings  pertaining 
thereto,  by  causing  the  rod  of  the  house  of  Aaron  to  bud 
and  blossom,  and  yield  fruit  in  a  miraculous  manner,  dis- 
tinguishing it,  visibly.,  from  the  rods  of  the  other  tribes 
and  families  of  Israel. 

Aaron  was  of  th3  tribe  of  Levi,  but  the  priesthood  pro- 
perly so  called,  was  confined  to  the  house  of  Aaron,  though 
the  entire  tribe  was  set  apart  for  a  service  auxiliary  to  the 
priesthood.  All  the  sons  or  male  descendants  of  Aaron 
were  to  be  priests,  but  Aaron  and  after  him  his  eldest  son, 
and  so  on,  in  the  order  of  primogeniture,  were  to  be  high 
priests,  in  regular  succession. 

"And  the  holy  garments  of  Aaron  shall  be  his  sons  af- 
ter him,  to  be  annointed  therein  and  to  be  consecrated  in 
them.  And  that  son  that  is  priest  in  his  stead  shall  put 
them  on  seven  days,  when  he  cometh  into  the  tabernacle 
of  the  congregation  to  minister  in  the  holy  place." — Ex. 
xxix.  29-30. 


DEMUOKAOV    OF  OHKISTIANITY.  179 

This  priesthood  was  to  be  perpetual  in  the  family  of 
Aaron,  so  long  as  the  institution  was  preserved. 

"And  thou  shalt  bring  his  sons,  and  clothe  them  with 
coats,  and  thou  shalt  anoint  them  as  thou  didst  anoint 
their  father,  that  they  may  minister  to  me  in  the  priest's 
office :  for  their  anointing  shall  surely  be  an  everlasting 
priesthood,  throughout  their  generations." — Ex.xl.  14,  15. 

Such  was  the  organization  of  the  priesthood.  There 
was  always  to  be  one  high  priest,  in  the  order  of  primo- 
geniture from  Aaron,  and  a  priesthood  consisting  of  all 
the  sons  and  son's  sons  of  Aaron,  in  perpetuity  of  descent 
and  succession.  Besides  these  were  the  Levites,  the  en- 
tire male  posterity  of  Levi,  not  included  in  the  priesthood 
proper. 

In  the  numbering  of  the  children  of  Israel  for  military 
enrolment,  the  ti'ibe  of  Levi,  including  the  priesthood, 
was  not  to  be  numbered,  for  the  reason  assigned,  that  they 
were  appointed  to  another  service.  (Numbers  i.  49,  50.) 
In  the  next  chapter  the  statement  is  more  full  and  defi- 
nite : 

"And the  Lord  spake  unto  Moses  saying,  Bring  the  tribe 
of  Levi  near,  and  present  them  before  Aaron,  the  priest, 
that  ilicy  may  minister  unto  him.  And  they  shall  keep  his 
charge  and  the  charge  of  the  whole  congregation,  to  do  the 
service  of  the  tabernacle.  And  thou  shalt  give  the  Levites 
unto  Aaron  and  his  sons,  they  are  wholly  given  unto  him, 
out  of  the  children  of  Israel. ''-^Y?/???.  iii.  5-9.  "Ihave  taken 
the  Levites  from  among  the  children  of  Israel,  instead  of 
the  first  born  that  openeth  the  matrix,  among  the  children 
of  Israel,  therefore  shall  the  Levites  be  mine.  Because 
all  the  first  born  are  mine,  for  on  the  day  that  1  smote  all 
the  first  born  in  the  land  of  Egypt,  1  hallowed  unto  me  all 
the  first  born  in  Israel :  both  man  and  beast,  mine  shall 
they  be.     1  am  the  Lord." — v.  12,  13. 

In  the  eighth  chapter  is  a  minute  account  of  the  conse- 
cration of  the  Levites.  The  ground  of  their  separation  is 
then  again  repeated  with  some  additions.  Having  stated 
that  they  were  taken  "  for  all  the  first  born  of  the  children 
of  Israel,"  it  is  added: 

"  And  I  have  given  the  Levites  as  a  gift  to  Aaron   and 


180  DEMOCRACY  OF  CHRISTIANITY. 

to  his  sons  from  among  the  children  of  Israel,  to  do  the 
service  of  the  children  of  Israel  in  the  tabernacle  of  the 
congregation,  and  to  make  an  atonement  for  the  children  of 
Israel,  that  there  be  no  plague  among  the  children  of  Is- 
rael, when  the  children  of  Israel  come  nigh  unto  the  sanc- 
tuary.''— V.  19. 

The  reader  will  here  notice,  again,  the  symbolical  im- 
port of  the  Levitical  separation  and  consecration,  as  well 
as  that  of  the  priesthood — the  same  adaptation  to  bring 
to  mind  the  need  of  an  atonement,  to  commemorate  the 
literal  yet  allegorical  deliverance  in  Egypt,  and  at  the 
same  time  to  furnish  an  additional  symbol  of  the  spiritual 
deliverance  by  the  Messiah  that  was  to  come.  The  im- 
pression of  the  unapproachable  majesty  and  purity  of 
God,  and  the  consequent  necessity  of  a  mediator  was  con- 
veyed by  the  entire  arrangement  of  Levites  and  priest- 
hood. 

First  one  tribe  of  twelve  must  be  selected  to  stand  and 
Xo  act,  symbolically,  instead  of  the  nation.  But  not  all 
the  tribe  could  be  admitted  to  the  priesthood,  by  whom 
alone  the  sacrifices  were  to  be  offered.  Only  one  family 
of  the  tribe,  that  of  Aaron,  was  admitted,  by  a  still  more 
solemn  and  thorough  consecration,  to  that  service.  But 
of  the  priesthood  only  one,  the  high  priest,  set  apart  from 
among  the  priests,  could  enter  into  the  holy  of  holies,  the 
inner  sanctuary,  and  offer  the  great  annual  sacrifice,  sym- 
bolical of  the  one  great  sacrifice  of  Christ.  This  an  inge- 
ment  harmonized  with  that  by  which,  for  the  same  great 
object,  the  beasts  of  Palestine  were  divided  into  the  clean 
and  the  unclean,  of  which  none  but  the  clean  eould  be  of- 
fered in  sacrifice  to  the  Infinite  purity  ;  and  not  even  of 
these,  unless  the  individual  beast  selected  were  without 
blemish  and  perfect  in  its  kind— the  whole  foreshadowing 
the  one  faultless  and  perfect  victim,  the  lamb  without  spot, 
"  the  Lamb  of  God  that  taketh  away  the  sin  of  the 
world." 

Interpreted  in  the  light  of  this  simple  yet  sublime  lesson, 
which  the  whole  economy  was  manifestly   intended  to 


DEMOCRACY-  OF  CHKISTI  *.XITY.  181 

convey,  the  entire  stnictnre  and  orgmization  of  the  He- 
brew hierarch}^  (if  it  be  called  such. ;  had  a  high  and  sa- 
cred meaning — far  enough  removed  fron^i  anything  like  the 
exaltation  of  man  over  man,  by  the  erection  of  a  caste.  It 
was  not  because  the  children  of  Abraham  were  better  than 
those  of  Nahor,  or  those  of  Isaac  better  than  those  of 
Ishmael,  or  those  of  Jacob  than  those  of  Esau,  or  those  of 
Levi  than  those  of  the  other  tribes,  or  those  of  Aaron  than 
those  of  Moses,  or  the  first  born  of  Aaron  than  his  other 
sons,  that  they  were  thus  successively  separated  from 
their  brethren  ;  but  it  was  because  God  had  an  impressive 
and  an  all-important  lesson  to  teach  the  Hebrews  and  all 
mankind  by  this  gradation  of  typical  separations  and  pu- 
rifications from  the  polluted  mass  of  humanity,  upwards, 
step  by  step,  before  a  high  priest  could  be  selected  to  re- 
present the  High  Priest  who  was  "  made  higher  than  the 
heavens." 

The  Hebrew  priesthood  thus  christianized  by  its  con- 
nexion with  the  "  better  covenant,"  so  far  from  teaching 
the  pride  of  caste,  or  the  separation  of  man  from  his  bro- 
ther, teaches  the  opposite  lesson  of  humiliation  and  broth- 
erhood in  guilt  and  in  hope,  the  distance  of  sinful  man  from 
his  iMaker,  till  by  the  Great  Mediator  restored.  So  far 
from  teaching  servility  and  degrading  superstition,  it 
opens  to  all  who  will  understandingly  receive  it,  the  way 
into  the  holy  of  holies,  and  unites  them  in  a  royal  brother- 
hood of  priests  unto  God.  Take  away  from  the  Hebrew 
priesthood  this  allegorical  meaning — the  only  meaning 
that  can  be  claimed  for  it — divorce  it  from  the  new  cove- 
nant, from  Calvary,  from  Christ,  and  then,  to  be  sure,  you 
have  divorced  it  from  the  wants  of  humanity,  from  the 
spirit  of  common  brotherhood,  you  have  transformed  it 
into  a  grim  superstition,  a  lordly  usurpation,  a  degrading 
caste.  In  other  language,  when  you  have  made  it  anti- 
christian,  you  have  made  it  anti-democratic,  of  course. 
But  such  was  not  the  meaning  of  Moses.  He  rejoiced  to 
see  the  day  of  the  Savior,  he  saw  it  and    was    glad.     On 


182  DEMOCRACY  OF  CHRISTIANITY. 

the  mount  of  transfiguration,  in  company  with  Elijah,  he 
epake  of  his  decease,  which  he  should  accomplish  at  Je- 
rusalem, when  this  priesthood  should  be  fulfilled.  The 
ecclesiastical  polity  he  revealed  was  not  at  war  with  the 
civil.  He  did  not  lead  forth  his  nation  from  under  the 
yoke  of  the  Pharaohs,  to  mock  them  with  the  far  more 
degrading  chain  of  spiritual  bondage.  It  w^as  to  the  feet 
of  the  Messiah  that  he  beckoned  them,  not  to  those  of  the  sons 
of  Aaron,  of  Caiaphas,  or  of  the  man  of  sin.  The  Hebrews 
who  read  not  this  lesson  in  the  typical  separation  of  the 
Levites  and  the  priesthood  were  "  blinded  in  their  minds," 
as  Paul  testifies,  and  "  until  this  day  remaineth  the  same 
vail,  untaken  away,  in  the  reading  of  the  Old  Testament, 
which  vail  is  done  away  in  Christ.  But  even  unto  this 
day,  when  Moses  is  read,  the  vail  is  on  their  heart ;  nev- 
ertheless when  it  shall  turn  to  the  Lord,  the  vail  shall  be 
taken  away.  Now  the  Lord  is  that  spirit,  and  where  the 
spirit  of  the  Lord  is,  there  is  Liberty."' — //  Corinth,  iii. 
14-17. 

Nothing  but  this  same  vail  on  the  minds  of  a  nom- 
inal Christian  church  and  ministry,  sensualized  by  the 
love  of  the  world,  could  ever  have  deluded  them  with  the 
notion  that  a  Christian  hierarchy  must  needs  succeed  to  the 
Jewish,  or  be  engrafted  upon  it — that  the  latter  was  a  be- 
fitting pattern  and  legitimate  precedent  and  warranty  of 
the  former.  When  the  One  Great  Propitiatory  Sacrifice 
and  High-priesthood  of  Calvary  shall  have  become  anti- 
quated and  obsolete,  to  be  rejected  as  a  stumbling-block 
or  derided  as  foolishness — when  that  "  unchangeable 
priesthood"  shall  have  run  out  or  require  to  be  new  mod- 
elled, and  when  in  consequence  it  shall  have  become 
needful  to  foreshadow  and  symbolize  some  great  future 
manifestation  of  a  still  higher  priesthood  and  more  costly 
sacrifice  yet  unrevealed — then,  but  not  sooner,  will  it  be- 
come congruous  or  comely,  significant  or  allowable,  to 
construct  another  human  priesthood,  after  the  manner  of 
Aaron  and  Levi.    Whenever  constructed,  it  can  have  no 


DEMOCRACY  OF    CHRISTIANITY.  183 

validity  except  by  appointment  of  Him  who  caused  Aa- 
ron's rod  to  bud,  to  blossom,  and  to  bring  forth  ahnonds. 
It  must  be  attested  to  mankind  by  some  miracle  equally 
convincing  and  unimpeachable.  And  it  must  be  a  priest- 
hood for  the  offering  of  symbolical  offerings  and  sacrifi- 
ces, not  for  the  mere  chattering  of  the  masses,  nor  for  the 
purpose,  with  or  without  the  mass,  to  lord  it  over  God's 
heritage. 

"  For  every  high  priest  taken  from  among  men  is  or- 
dained for  men,  in  things  pertaining  to  God,  that  he  may 
offer  both  gifts  and  sacrifices  for  si?is,  who  can  have  com- 
passion on  the  ignorant,  and  them  that  are  out  of  the  way, 
for  that  he  also  is  compassed  with  infirmity,  [not  claiming 
his  seat  as  the  just  prerogative  of  his  heroism  and 
royal  powers]  and  by  reason  hereof,  he  ought,  as  for  the 
people,  so  also  for  himself  iooffer  for  sins  ^  [thus  recognizing 
his  equality  with  them.]  And  no  man  taketh  this  honor 
to  himself,  but  he  that  was  called  of  God,  as  was 
Aaron." 

Over  and  above  all  this,  when  this  future  hierarchy, 
heaven-ordained  and  duly  attested,  comes  into  being,  it 
must  not  take  the  distinctive  name  of  Christian^  for  it  will 
have  arisen  upon  the  assumption  that  the  Christian  high 
priesthood  had  turned  out  to  be  a  failure — that  so  much, 
at  least,  of  the  Christian  dispensation  had  proved  transient, 
and  something  better  was  coming  in  its  stead.  No  Chris- 
tian hierarchy  or  exclusive  priesthood,  that  is,  no  such 
priesthood  in  the  line  of  succession  from  Christ  and  his 
apostles  (if  Paul  understood  the  matter)  can  claim  to  have 
been  derived  from,  or  rest  upon  Levi  and  Aaron  ;  for  Christ 
was  "  a  priest  forever  alter  the  order  of  Melchizedec,"  and 
not  after  Aaron  or  Levi,  who  paid  tithes  to  Melchizedec; 
and  "  our  Lord  sprang  out  of  Judah,  of  which  tribe  Moses 
spake  nothing  concerning  priesthood  !"  (See  Heb.  v.l-G  : 
and  vii.  1-16. 

Tliis  view  of  the  priesthood  of  the-Hebrews,  expounding 
it  in  the  light  of  the  Christian  high  priesthood  which  it 
symbolized,  thus  eliciting  its  true  spiritual   significancy, 


Ig4  DEMOCRACY    OF    CHRISTIANITY. 

and  vindicating  it  from  the  imputation  of  erecting  a  hier- 
archal  caste,  or  of  furnishing  a  legitimate    precedent   for 
the  hierarchies  that  in  later  times  have  been  claimed  to  be 
founded  upon  it,  is  corroborated  moreover  by  the  fact  that 
all  such  hierarchal    arrangements    among   Christians,   or 
those  claiming  to  be  such,  just  in  proportion  to  the  degree 
in  which  the  iiierarchal    principle    has   been    introduced, 
have  directly  or  indirectly  displaced,  superseded,  or  thrown 
into  the  shade,  the  idea  of  the  one   sole   high   priesthood 
and  propitiatory  sacrifice  of  the  Messiah.     And  whoever, 
in  any  age  of  the  church,  or  in  any  communion— a  Luther 
in  Germany,  a  Lefevre  in  France,  a  Bunyan  in   England, 
or  a  Roger  Williams  in  America— would  erect  a  standard 
against  hierarchal  usurpation,  must  inscribe  on  that  stand- 
ard, the  high  priesthood  of  Jesus  Christ.    And  those  who, 
in  any  communion,  either  ancient  or  modern,  even  the  most 
simple,  the  most  democratic,  have  permitted  that  great  idea 
to  fade  out  of  their  minds,  or  wlio  have  virtually  explain- 
ed it  away,  have  commonly  though  perhaps  insensibly  be- 
come  less  democratic  in  their  tastes,  less  jealous  of  hier- 
archal arrangements  and  the  superintendency  of  religion 
by  the  state,  less  satisfied  with  democratic  ascendency  in 
civil  and  ecclesiastical  affliirs,  more  prone  to  idolize   dis- 
tinguished men,  to  magnify  heroes,  to  canonize  saints,  to 
bow  down  before  the  supposed  divine  right  of  kings,   and 
(in  modern  times)  to  lament  the  want  of  veneration   that 
prevents  the  later  generations  from  being  as  confiding,  in 
this  respect,  as  their  forefathers.     As  illustrations  of  the 
closing  remark,  we  might  cite  the  writings  of  Dr.    Pusey 
and  of  Thomas  Carlyle.     Those  diverge  farthest  from  the 
spirit  of  democracy  who  learn  least  of  the  profound  lesson 
involved  in  the  Levitical  priesthood. 

These  reficctions  have  been  suggested,  in  connexion 
with  the  statement  we  have  taken  from  the  scriptures,  of 
the  elements  and  the  organization  of  the  Levitical  and 
Aaronic  priesthood.  We  have  been  led  to  anticipate,  in 
some  measure,  what  would  perhaps  have  been   more   ap- 


DEMOCRACY  OF  CHRISTIANITY.  185 

propriate  under  our  second  inquiry,  namely  :  What  was  the 
official  work  of  the  priests  and  the  Levites  ]  The  scriptures 
already  cited  have  furnished  the  main  answer  to  this  question. 

"  Every  high  priest  taken  from  among  men  is  ordained 
*     *      that  he  may  offer  both  gifts  and  sacrifices  for  sins." 

Again  : 

"Every  priest  standeth  daily  ministering  and  offering 
o^'tentimes  the  same  sacrifices,  which  can  never  take  away 
sins  :  but  this  man  [Jesus]  after  he  had  offered  one  sacri- 
fice for  sins,  forever  sat  down  at  the  right  hand  of  God." 
—Heb.  X.  11,  12. 

There  must  be  admitted  therefore  to  be  a  self-consis- 
tency in  those  priesthoods  succeeding  the  Jewish  and  os- 
tensibly founded  in  part  upon  it,  which  profess  to  make  a 
sacrifice  for  sins,  and  to  pardon  or  remit  them.  A  priest- 
hood that  cannot  claim  to  do  this,  either  symbolically  and 
prophetically,  or  really  and  in  the  present  tense,  must  fail 
of  reaching  its  mark  and  become  abortive. 

The  Hebrew  priesthood  exercised,  however,  the  addi- 
tional vocation  of  teaching.  The  written  copy  of  the  law 
and  all  the  symbolical  paraphernalia  and  emblems  of  their 
religion  were  committed  to  their  keeping.  These  they 
were  to  preserve,  to  study,  to  explain.  This  we  learn 
from  the  prophets  as  well  as  from  Moses  : 

"For  the  priest's  lips  should  keep  knowledge,  and  they 
should  seek  the  law  at  his  mouth,  for  he  is  the  messenger 
of  the  Lord  of  hosts." — Mai.  ii.  7.  "And  that  ye  may 
teach  the  children  of  Israel  all  the  statutes  which  the 
Lord  hath  spoken  unto  them  by  the  hand  of  Moses." — 
Lev.  X.  11. 

In  connexion  with  the  text  first  cited  the  inspired  pro- 
phet sharply  rebukes  the  priests  for  their  neglect  of  this 
duty,  and  similar  rebukes  are  found  in  the  other  prophets. 
This  class  of  facts  reminds  us  that  the  sons  of  Levi 
and  Aaron,  though  specially  set  apart  for  the  work  of  reli- 
gious instruction,  were  not  exclusively  commissioned,  and 
held  no  official  monopoly  of  teaching.  Very  few  of  the  inspi- 
red prophets  were  cither  priests  or  Levites.  Amos  was  a 
herdsman  of  Tekoa,  a  gather  of  Sycamore  fruit,  or  wild 


186  DEMOORAOY  OF  CHRISTIANITY. 

figs  ;  yet  he  boldly  reproved  priests  and  kings.  Solomon,  | 
though  not  of  the  priestly  tribe,  was  emphatically  "  the 
preacher  "  of  his  times,  and  dedicated  the  temple  by  pub- 
lic prayer  in  presence  of  the  priests.  Nehemiah  is  sup- 
posed to  have  been  of  the  tribe  of  Judah— very  evidently 
he  was  not  a  priest — yet  he  abounded  in  religious  exhor- 
tations and  preaching,  had  priests  among  his  auditors, 
and  addressed  to  them  especially  his  solemn  admoni- 
tions.    (Neh.  v.  12.) 

Even  in  the  offering  of  sacrifices,  the  general  rule  re- 
stricting  it  to  the  priesthood  must  have  admitted  of  some 
exceptions,  or  we  should  not  read  of  the  repeated  sacrifi- 
ces of  Samuel,  who  certainly  was  not  a  priest,  though 
supposed  by  some  to  have  been  of  the  lineage  of  Levi, 
notwithstanding  the  text  calls  him  an  Ephrathite,  (I.  Sam. 
i.  1.)  Elijah,  whose  parentage  is  unknown,  oftered  sac- 
rifices, likewise. 

The  authority,  power,  and  prerogatives  of   the  priest- 
hood,  is  another  interesting  topic  of   inquiry.     From  the 
account  already  given,  of  the  civil  polity  of  Moses,  it  is 
evident  that  their  authority,  whatever  it  might  be,  could 
lie  very  little  in  that  direction,  beyond  the  matter  before 
alluded  to,  in  respect  to  the  court  of  final  reference  or  ap- 
peal, which  was  to  be   composed  of  the  regularly  elected 
judge   in    connexion    with  the    priest.     (Deut.  xvii.  12.) 
With  this  exception  the  jurisdiction  of  the  priest  appears 
to  have  been  almost  wholly  confined  to  things  pertaining 
to  the  ritual  services,  symbolical  observances,  or  matters 
nearly  connected  with  the  same.     Thus  the  law  of  lepro- 
sy, the  law  of  jealousy,  somewhat   peculiar   in   their  pro- 
visions, were  administered  by  the  priests.     False  witnes- 
ses were  to  be  examined  and  sentenced  by  the  concurrent 
action  of  the  judges   and  the    priests.     (Deut.  xix.  18.) 
Those  very  limited   civil   functions  were  purely  judicial, 
so  far  as  they  could  be  considered  civil  functions  at  all. 

As    to    the   Levites,   in  distinction  from  the  priests,  no 
one   who   takes   pains  to   run   over  the  inventory  of  the 


DEMOORAOY  OF  CHRISTIANITY. 


187 


heavy  and  cumbersome  articles  committed  to  their  exclu- 
sive custody,  which  they  alone  were  to  touch,  to  handle, 
to  carry,  to  use  ;  the  ark,  the  tabernacle,  with  all  that  ap- 
pertained to  them,  the  care  of  the  altar,  the  furniture,  the 
killino-  of  animals  for  sacrifices,  the  removal  of  the  offal, 
the  cleansing  of  the  sanctuary,  including  all  the  service 
of  the  priests  and  of  the  congregation,  in  respect  to  their 
burdensome  service,  will  be  tempted  to  regard  their  vo- 
cation a  sinecure,  or  their  position  one  to  be  envied  by  the 
ambitious  aspirant  after  power.  The  Levites  were  por- 
ters, bearers  of  burdens,  chiefly  devoted  to  laborious  and 
muscular  service,  much  of  what  would  now  be  accounted 
menial.  From  some  incidental  expressions  in  the  subse- 
quent history  it  would  seem  that  they  were  however  re- 
garded as  the  associates  or  assistants  of  the  priests  in  the 
work  of  religious  teaching.  Portions  of  the  Levites  seem 
also  to  have  been  associated  with  the  singers,  or  to  have 
constituted  the  choirs  and  musical  bands.  Their  station, 
in  some  respects,  was  analagous  to  that  of  our  modern 
door  keepers  and  sextons. 

When  ecclesiastical  ambition  emulates  the  hierarchy  of 
the  Hebrews,  it  is  not,  probably,  with  an  eye  to  the  posi- 
tion of  Levites,  who  must  have  been  far  mo  e  numerous 
than  the  priesthood  proper.  The  exhortation  not  to  for- 
sake theLevite,  butto  mvite  him  along  with  the  widow  and 
the  fatherless,  at  feasts,  ''that  he  may  eat  and  be  satis- 
fied," ''  because  he  hath  no  part  nor  inheritance  with 
thee,"  (Deut.  xiv.  27-29,)  does  not  convey  the  impression 
that  they  were  expected  to  be  a  bloated  and  lordly  aris- 
tocracy, before  whom  the  masses  of  the  people  were  to 
bow  down  in  abject  submission,  and  do  idolatrous  homage. 
And  this  brings  us  to  a  consideration  of  the  pecuniary 
provision  made  for  the  ecclesiastical  polity  of  the  Hebrews. 

We  have  said,  in  another  connexion,  that  the  expenses 
of  the  Hebrew  civil  list  could  not  have  been  burthensome, 
there  being  nothing  requiring  support  except  the  local 
courts  of  justice  and  the  one  court  of  reference  or  appeal. 


188  DEMOCRACY  OF  CHRISTIANITT 

Wa  have  failed  indeed  to  discover  any  provision  or  ap' 
propriation  for  the  support  of  these,  and  the  judges  were 
explicitly  prohibited  from  taking  gifts.  Whether  this 
was  intended  to  prohibit  a  regular  fee  for  trying  causes 
we  would  not  adventure  t©  determine,  but  it  seems  re- 
markable that  no  regulation  in  respect  to  it  should  be  re- 
corded, if  there  were  any.  Is  it  not  possible  that  the  mi- 
nute distribution  of  judiciary  service  among  the  people, 
by  electing  a  judge  for  each  band  of  ten  citizens,  would 
so  divide  the  labor  that  it  would  be  gratuitously  perform- 
ed 1  U  so,  we  seem  to  have  found  a  civil  government 
free  of  charge  ! 

Be  this  as  it  may,  the  tithe,  or  tenth,  appears  to  have 
been  paid  into  the  hands  of  the  priests  and  Levites — the 
entire  tribe  of  Levi,  including  the  family  of  Aaron.  It  is 
however  to  be  borne  in  mind  that  this  was  not  merely  in 
compensation  for  their  services.  It  came  likewise  in  the 
room  of  their  portion  of  the  land  of  Canaan  when  it  was 
divided  among  the  other  tribes,  the  whole  tribe  of  Levi 
being  expressly  excluded  from  any  share  in  that  division, 
so  far  as  farms  were  concerned,  in  consideration  of  this 
tithe.  A  number  of  cities  (or  villages)  were  however 
given  to  them  for  their  residences,  and  these  dwellings 
had  the  benefit  of  the  law  of  the  jubilee,  like  the  land. 
The  priests  had  likewise  certain  portions  of  the  meat  of- 
fered in  sacrifice,  for  their  food.  (See  Numb,  xviii.  20- 
32:  Deut.  xviii.  1-8;  Numb.  xxxv.  6,  &;c. :  Lev.  xxv. 
32,  (fee.) 

This  arrangement,  in  connexion  with  the  work  assign- 
ed to  them,  excluded  them  from  the  profits  of  agriculture, 
and,  as  is  commonly  understood,  from  those  of  manufac- 
tures and  commerce.  We  hear  of  no  princely  ecclesias- 
tical palaces  among  them,  during  the  commonwealth,  like 
some  modern  ones  that  might  be  mentioned,  and  whose 
occupants  claim  the  Hebrew  hierarchy  as  their  pattern. 

The  revenues  of  the  Christian  bishops  of  the  third, 
fourth,  fifth,    and    sixth   centuries,  must  have  contrasted 


DEMOCRACY  OF  CHRISTIANITY.  189 

Strongly  with  those  of  the  Hebrew  priests,  the  amount 
of  their  receipts  being  as  unbounded  as  the  infatuation  of 
the  devotees  who  idolized  them,  and  who  seem  to  have 
supposed  their' own  title  to  heaven  made  sure,  in  propor- 
tion to  the  amount  of  their  gifts  to  the  priests.  Against 
this  madness,  the  fixed  and  dsterminate  ratio  of  payment 
in  the  Hebrew  polity  was  well  calculated  to  interpose  a 
preventive,  as  well  as  against  the  exorbitant  and  corrupt- 
ing wealth  of  one  portion  of  the  priesthood,  while  another 
portion  was  left  in  a  state  of  servile  dependence  and  want. 
That  no  abuses  crept  in,  we  may  not  suppose.  There 
must  have  been  specimens  of  rapacious  priests,  who 
grasped  after  all  they  could  get,  as  well  as  of  covetous 
laymen  who  withheld  their  tithes.  Both  these  were  in 
fact  visited  with  prophetic  reproofs. 

What  measures,  if  any,  were  taken  or  were  authorized  to 
be  taken,  to  enforce  or  compel  the  unwilling  payment  of 
tithes,  the  writer  is  unable  to  state.  He  has  met  with  no 
Hebrew  statute  on  that  subject.  He  recollects  no  inci- 
dent of  the  history  illustrative  of  the  process  of  distraint 
for  tithes  unless  it  be  that  recorded  of  the  graceless  sons 
of  Eli,  who  forfeited  their  priesthood  and  paid  their  lives 
as  the  price  of  their  rapaeity  and  licentiousness.  (I.  Sam. 
ii.  12-17,  also  22-36.)  Of  the  forcible  seizure  and  sale 
of  furniture,  goods,  or  estates,  by  the  officers  of  '■'■govern- 
ment^^ to  pay  the  priests'  tithes,  the  annals  of  the  Hebrew 
commonwealth  furnish  no  instances.  Nor  do  those  of 
any  of  the  royal  dynasties,  unless  Ahab's  seizure  of  Na- 
both's  vineyard  be  claimed  as  a  precedent,  a  fast  having 
been  proclaimed  in  that  connexion.  But  if  that  were  an 
ecclesiastical  distraint,  which  seems  improbable,  the 
priesthood  of  Baal  and  not  of  Jehovah  must  have  been 
the  recipients.  The  prophetic  reproofs  of  those  who 
wrongfully  withheld  tithes  convey  the  impression  that 
the  promises,  the  threatenings,  and  the  Providential  dis- 
pensations of  Jehovah  were  more  relied  upon  than 
the    warrants    of   majristrates    and   the    seizures  of    bai- 


190  DEMOCRAOY  OF  CHRISTIANITY. 

liffs,  in  the  process  of  collection.  (!See  Malachi  iii. 
8-12.)      . 

A  novel  phenomenon  would  be  witnessed  should  some 
of  our  modern  religious  establishments,  that  of  the  Church 
of  England,  for  example,  from  the  portals  of  her  episco- 
pal palace  at  Lambeth,  send  forth,  on  some  befitting  oc- 
casion, such  a  proclamation  on  the  subject  of  needful  sup- 
port as  that  which  by  divine  direction,  was  uttered  by 
the  prophet  Malachi  to  the  people  of  Israel,  either  in  the 
times  of  Nehemiah,  or  not  long  afterwards.  The  burden 
of  this  prophet  to  the  priests,  (chapter  second)  or  his  pre- 
diction of  the  refiiner's  fire  that  was  1o  purify  the  sons  of 
Levi  (chapter  third)  we  could  hardly  ask  or  suppose  an 
Anglican  archbishop  to  repeat,  officially,  with  much  ear- 
nestness. But  might  he  not  be  prevailed  upon  to  repub- 
lish, over  his  episcopal  seal  and  signature,  an  order  of 
the  ancient  Hebrew  Church  on  the  subject  of  tithes,  the 
most  stringent  one  perhaps  that  can  be  found  1  Let  us 
see  how  it  would  read.  And  let  us  imagine  the  starving 
operatives  of  Manchester  and  Birmingham,  or  perchance, 
a  grand  procession  of  Chartists  drawn  up  before  the 
priestly  palace  to  hear  the  reading  of  it  by  some  fat  gowns- 
man duly  decked  in  sacerdotal  silks  for  the  occasion. 

"  Will  a  man  rob  God!  Yet  ye  have  robbed  me.  But 
ye  say.  Wherein  have  we  robbed  thee  1  In  tithes  and  of- 
ferings. Ye  are  cursed  with  a  curse,  for  ye  have  robbed 
me,  even  this  whole  nation.  Brmg  ye  all  the  tithes  into 
the  store-house,  that  there  may  be  rneat  in  mine  house, 
and  prove  me  now  herewith,  saith  the  Lord  of  hosts,  if  I 
will  not  open  you  the  windows  of  heaven  and  pour  you 
out  a  blessing,  that  there  shall  not  be  room  enough  to  re- 
ceive it.  And  I  will  rebuke  the  devourer  for  your  sakes, 
that  he  shall  not  destroy  the  fruits  of  the  ground,  neither 
shall  your  vine  cast  her  fruit  before  the  time  in  the  field, 
saith  the  Lord  of  hosts." 

The  dissenters  in  England  would  greet  such  a  procla- 
mation from  such  a  quarter  as  the  presage  of  a  return  to 
the  voluntary  principle,  on  the  part  of  the  now  Establish- 
ed Church.     The  incongruity  of  such  an  appeal  from  such 


DEMOCRACY  OF  CHRISTIANIXr.  191 

a  source  and  the  absurdity  of  supposing  that  a  Church 
Establishment  in  the  habit  of  being  replenished  by  funds 
extorted  by  the  strong  arm  of  govermnent  would  resort  to 
such  exhortations  or  trust  itself  and  its  interests  upon  the 
hold  that  they  would  take  upon  the  consciences  and  af- 
fections of  the  people,  is  too  plain  and  palpable  to  be  over- 
looked or  mistaken.  And  we  have  chosen  this  mode  of 
illustration  that  the  wide  chasm  between  our  modern 
church  establishments  and  the  ecclesiastical  polity  of  the 
Hebrews,  even  after  the  subversion  of  the  democratic 
commonwealth,  might  not  only  be  seen  but  felt. 

This  allusion  to  the  voluntary  principle  in  the  support 
of  religious  institutions  reminds  us  of  certain  traces  of  it 
in  the  economj  of  Moses  and  of  the  operation  of  it  during 
his  own  lifetime  and  under  his  supervision,  by  command 
of  God  himself. 

"  And  Moses  spake  unto  all  the  children  of  Israel,  say- 
insf,  This  is  the  thing  which  the  Lord  commanded,  saying, 
Take  from  amongst  you  an  offering  unto  the  Lord  :  Who- 
soever is  of  a  willmg  hearty  let  him  bring  it,  an  offering  of 
the  Lord  ;  gold,  and  silver,  and  brass,  and  blue,  and  pur- 
ple, and  scarlet,  and  fine  linen,  and  goat's  hair,"  «Scc. — Ex. 
XXXV.  4-6, 

The  enumeration  of  articles  proceeds  at  some  length, 
specifying  the  principal  materials  for  constructing  the 
tabernacle.  A  similar  appeal  is  made  for  the  voluntary 
labor  of  the  skillful,  or  wise-hearted,  of  both  sexes.  Then 
foHows  in  the  same  chapter  and  the  next  following,  an  ac- 
count of  these  voluntary  contributions  and  labors. 

"  The  children  of  Israel  brought  a  willing  ofTering  unto 
the  Lord,  every  man  and  woman  whose  heart  made  them  will- 
ing to  bring  all  manner  of  work  which  the  Lord  had  com- 
manded to  he  made  by  the  hand  of  Moses." — v.  29.  [And 
finally  it  became  necessary  to  make  proclamation  to  cease 
bringing,]  "  for  the  stuff  which  they  had  was  sufficient  for 
all  the  work,  to  make  it,  and  too  much.'' — xxxvi.  7. 

In  the  seventh  chapter  of  Numbers  we  have  an  account 
of  the  voluntary  offerings  of  the  princes  or  principal  men 
of  Israel,  "heads  of  the  house  of  their  fathers,"    on  occa- 


192  DEMOCRACY  OF  GHRISTIANITT. 

sion  of  the  dedication  of  the  sanctuary,  after  it  was  set 
up.  These  ''  princes,"  by  the  bye,  do  not  seem  to  have 
constituted  a  peerage  or  aristocracy  of  blood,  of  which 
the  term  might  convey  to  our  modern  ears  the  impression. 
There  were  no  such  orders  of  nobility  in  the  Hebrew 
commonwealth  ;  but  there  was  a  princely  liberality  ex- 
hibited on  this  occasion,  and  the  equality  of  the  donations 
denotes  the  absence  of  ostentatious  emulation  on  the  one 
hand,  and  of  niggardly  unwillingness  on  the  other.  Some 
approximation  towards  an  equality  of  fortunes  may  also 
be  inferred.  Modern  princes  fatten  and  riot  upon  their 
oppressive  extortions,  under  cover  of  civil  government. 
These  distinguished  themselves  by  bountiful  contribu- 
tions for  public  objects. 

■  Examples  of  the  voluntary  principle  are  found  in  sub- 
sequent periods  of  the  history,  even  after  the  subversion 
of  the  commonwealth,  and  under  the  reign  of  the  kings, 
and  not  a  few  of  the  offerings  at  the  sanctuary  were  to  be 
"  free-will  offerings." 

Under  the  reign  of  Joash  or  Jehoash,  the  son  of  Aha- 
ziah,  king  of  Judah,  two  hundred  and  seventeen  years  af- 
ter the  subversion  of  the  commonwealth  by  the  corona- 
tion of  Saul,  measures  were  taken  by  the  king  to  raise 
funds  for  repairing  the  temple  at  Jerusalem.  But  he  did 
not  resort  to  compulsory  taxation,  nor  was  the  money 
taken  out  of  any  public  treasury  that  could  have  been 
thus  accumulated.  He  only  directed  the  priests  to  lay 
up  for  that  purpose  "  the  dedicated  things  brought  into 
the  house  of  the  Lord,"  *  *  u  all  the  mo7iey  that  cometh 
into  any  mail's  heart  to  bring  into  the  house  of  the  Lord.'''' 
After  a  time  it  was  found  that  though  the  priests  had 
been  receiving  the  money,  nothing  was  done  towards  re- 
pairing the  house.  On  being  called  to  account,  a  defal- 
cation was  ascertained,  and  the  result  was  a  compromise. 
The  priests  consented  to  receive  no  more  money,  but 
were  not  lield  accountable  for  the  intended  repairs  !  But 
Jehoida,  the  chief  priest,  took  a  chest,  bored  a  hole  in  the 


DEMOCRACY  OF  CHRISTIANITY.  193 

]icl,  set  it  up  beside  the  alcar  and  commenced  receiving 
new  contributions,  so  tliat,  after  a  further  delay,  the  ob- 
ject was  accomplished.     (11.  Kings,  xii  4i-lG, 

When  the  temple  was  repaired  again,  about  two  hun- 
dred years  afterwards,  in  the  the  time  of  king  Josiah,  it 
was  done  "  with  the  money  that  was  brought  into  the 
house  of  Grod,  which  the  Levites  that  kept  the  doors  liad 
gathered  of  the  hand  of  Manassah  and  Ephraim,  and  of 
all  the  remnant  of  Israel,  and  of  all  Judah  and  Benjamin, 
and  they  returned  to   Jerusalem."     (II.  Chron.   xxxiv.  9. 

^'' They  returned^  Sfc. — These  Levites  seem  to  have  gone 
through  the  land  solicitmg  contributions  for  the  temple, 
even  from  the  remnant  of  Israel,  and  they  returned  to  Jeru- 
salem when  they  had  completed  that  business." — Scotfs 
Commentary. 

This  was  in  striking  contrast  with  the  present  method 
of  repairing  churches  in  England,  by  church  rates,  voted 
sometimes  by  bare  majorities,  sometimes  by  lean  minori- 
ties, yet  enforced  by  the  magistrate  and  collected  of  dis- 
senters by  seizures  of  their  effects — sometimes  consisting 
of  bedding  and  Bibles — and  the  sale  of  them  for  a  fourth 
or  tenth  part  of  their  value,  at  auction,  amid  the  murmurs 
of  the  populace,  very  few  of  whom  will  countenance  the 
procedure  by  purchasing  the  articles  ! 

The  temple  of  Solomon  may  have  been  built  by  his 
kingly  revenues — better  expended  thus  than  on  chariots, 
and  horses,  and  harems,  in  direct  violation  of  the  divine 
commandments — but  the  complaints  of  his  subjects  after 
his  death,  of  his  heavy  exactions,  the  pertinacity  of  his 
son  in  refusing  to  lighten  their  burdens,  the  consequent 
revolt  of  the  ten  tribes,  and  the  divine  prohibition  of  a 
civil  war  to  subjugate  them,  seem  to  be  connected  parts 
of  the  same  story,  less  creditable  to  the  monarch,  and  less 
democratic  than  the  method  pursued  in  the  time  of  Josiah. 
That  the  tithe  was  a  divine  and  authoritative  enact- 
ment we  do  not-  call  in  question,  nor  that  God  had  a  right, 
if  he  saw  fit,  to  provide  for  the  enforcement  of  tiiat  annual 
assessment  by  the  arm  of  civil  power.     Whether  He  did 


194  DEMOCRACY  OF  CHRISTIANITT. 

make  such  a  provision  is  another  question,  which  the  rea- 
der can  examine  at  his  leisure.  Perhaps  he  may  discover 
facts  in  proof  that  have  escaped  the  writer's  attention.  If 
it  were  so,  the  fact  would  be  no  precedent  for  discretion- 
ary human  legislation  in  that  department,  without  a  divine 
warrant.  The  democratic  principle  is  violated,  not  when 
God,  the  Supreme  Lawgiver,  establishes  priesthoods,  com- 
mands the  enforced  payment  of  tithes,  enjoins  ritual  ob- 
servances, and  the  punishment  of  offences  against  reli- 
gion, but  it  is  violated  when  man,  without  any  divine  com- 
mission to  do  so,  undertakes,  at  his  own  discretion  and  on 
his  own  authority,  to  lord  it  over  the  faith  of  his  fellow- 
man,  by  legislating  in  the  place  of  God. 

Whether  the  tithe  was  a  light  tax  or  a  heavy  one  it 
would  be  dfRcuIt  for  us  to  judge,  unless  we  understoodiSetter 
than  we  do  the  ability  of  the  people  to  pay.  We  may  be  cer- 
tain that  God  knew  what  was  proper  and  best.  Perhaps 
He  meant  to  discourage  the  accumulation  of  needless  and 
hurtful  wealth,  and  to  foreshadow  the  liberal  contributions 
of  the  New  Testament  church,  for  relieving  and  elevating 
the  masses  of  the  human  family.  How  a  tenth  would 
compare  with  the  modern  ratio  of  taxation,  even  in  repub- 
lics, we  could  better  compute  if  we  could  readily  form  any 
tolerably  correct  estimate  of  the  amount  of  taxes  we  do  pay, 
under  our  artificial,  concealed,  complicated,  and  indirect 
methods.  Would  the  laborers  of  Ireland,  England,  and 
Scotland  be  starving,  if  all  but  a  tenth  part  of  their  pro- 
ductive industry  were  their  own  1 

It  remains  to  inquire  into  the  conditions  and  tenure  un- 
der which  ecclesiastical  office  was  held  and  retained  in 
the  Mosaic  economy.  We  have  seen  that  the  appoint- 
ment, in  the  first  place,  came  directly  from  God.  The 
question  now  is,  whether  impeachment,  trial,  and  deposi- 
tion were  placed  in  the  hands  of  any  constituted  human  au- 
thorities, ecclesiastical  or  civil.  The  writer  is  not  aware 
of  any  provision  in  that  direction,  of  any  record  of  such 
a  procedure. 


DEMOCRACY  OF  CHTIISTIANITY.  195 

'  When  Nadab  and  Abihu  profaned  their  sacred  functions 
God  executed  summary  vengeance  upon  them,  himself, 
and  removed  them.  When  "two  hundred  and  fifty  prin- 
ces of  the  assembly'',  famous  in  the  congregation,  men  of 
renown,"  and  a  large  company  of  the  Levites,  moved  by 
ecclesiastical  ambition,  and  led  on  by  Korah,  Dathan,  and 
Abiram — the  first  named  being  the  son  of  Izhar,  the  son 
Kohath,  the  son  of  Levi — attempted  to  usurp  the  priest- 
hood and  eject  the  family  of  Aaron,  God  settled  the  con- 
troversy himself,  without  the  aid  of  secular  torce.  When 
the  sons  of  Eli  disgraced  their  office  and  their  father  re- 
strained them  not,  the  Lord  intimated  by  the  mouth  of 
iSamuel  to  Eli  that  the  priesthood  should  be  taken  away 
from  his  family,  and  that  in  token  of  this  his  two  sons, 
Hophni  and  Phinehas,  should  suddenly  die — both  ot  them 
in  one  day — which  speedily  came  to  pass.  Eli  himself 
died  on  hearing  the  intelligence,  and  under  the  reign  of 
Solomon  another  family — that  of  Zadoc  in  the  lirieof  Ele- 
azar,  the  son  of  Aaron — was  promoted  to  the  priesthood, 
leaving  the  posterity  of  Eli  in  a  menial  condition.  (See 
I  Samuel  ii.  with  remarks  of  Scott.) 

In  all  these  instances  a  providential  retribution,  in  some 
cases  miraculous,  removed  the  offending  incumbents  or 
aspirants,  without  the  intervention  of  any  human  judica- 
ture or  executive,  ecclesiastical  or  civil,  unless  it  be  con- 
jectured that  the  act  of  Solomon  was  in  pursuance  of  Sam- 
uel's prophecy,  in  which  case  the  act  was  rather  executive 
than  judicial. 

We  can  not  doubt  indeed  that  there  were  unworthy  in- 
cumbents of  the  priestly  office  who  were  not  thus  removed, 
in  any  remarkablemanner,  noroutof  theorder  of  nature,  but 
retained  the  office  during  their  lives.  Such  were  some  of  those 
reproved  by  the  prophets  ;  such  were  the  persecutors  of 
the  Savior,  though  the  race  of  these  was  cut  off,  and  the 
priestly  succession  forever  extinguished  a  few  years  after- 
wards. God  saw  fit,  for  good  reasons  doubtless,  to  toler- 
ate, temporarily,  this  state  of  things  under  that  peculiar 


196  DEMOCRACY  OF  CHRISTIANITY. 

economy,  and  He  did  not  judge  it  best  to  remedy  this 
seeming  evil  by  the  perhaps  greater  evil  of  committing  to 
the  Hebrews,  either  in  an  ecclesiastical  or  civil  capacity, 
the  prerogative  of  promoting  or  degrading  ecclesiastical 
functionaries  at  their  discretion.  No  high  priest,  no  pope, 
no  ecclesiastical  council  or  synod,  no  bench  of  cardinals, 
no  consistory,  no  prelate,  no  board  of  bishops,  no  general 
assemblies,  conferences,  presbyteries,  or  yearly  or  quar- 
terly meetings — no  king,  no  legislature,  no  judicial  court, 
no  civil  government  or  functionary  of  any  name  appears,  so 
far  as  we  can  see,  to  have  been  commissioned  by  God  to  ap- 
point priests  or  to  depose  them.  If  the  jjeople  were  not 
to  exercise  this  prerogative,  it  was  not  because  the  respon- 
sibility was  to  be  committed  to  a  secret  few  or  to  a  priest- 
ly or  royal  one,  other  tiian  the  Supreme  Lawgiver  him- 
self. 

And  here  we  find,  perhaps,  an  additional  reason  why  the 
symbolical  priesthood  of  the  Hebrews  was  hereditary.  It  was 
not  because  the  Great  High  Priest  of  the  new  covenant  was 
to  be  identified  by  his  coming  in  the  line  of  that  succession 
— -for  he  did  not.  On  the  other  hand,  the  preserved  suc- 
cession w^as  useful  in  demonstrating  that  he  did  ?iot  come 
in  that  line,  and  was  therefore  superior  to  it,  since  it  was 
displaced  to  make  room  for  him.  But  how,  without  such 
a  continuous  and  regular  repetition  of  miracles  as  should 
impair  their  miraculous  character  and  corresponding  ef- 
fect, could  Jehovah  himself  retain  to  himself  that  appoint- 
ing and  deposing  power  which  He  evidently  was  unwilling 
to  commit  to  the  hands  of  men  1  For,  let  it  be  noted, 
while  he  did  commit  the  election  of  civil  magistrates  to 
the  popular  vote,  and  while  he  did  direct  the  congregation, 
en  ?nasse,  to  act  as  a  court  for  trying  capital  offences,  He 
did  not  commit  to  the  same  people  the  election  of  their 
priests,  as  the  election  of  elders  and  deacons  was  commit- 
ted to  the  common  brotherhood  in  those  churches.  Why 
this  broad  distinction,  in  the  old  economy,  between  the 
popular  vote  in  civil  affairs    and   in  ecclesiastical?     The 


DEMOCKACr    OF    CHRISTIANITY.  -         197 

answer  to  this  seems  to  be,  the  Hebrew  cliurch,  unlike  the 
New  Testament^  was  not  a  family  of  a  pure  spiritual  bro- 
therhood, but  a  family  of  natural  descent.  In  a  church 
thus  constituted,  the  members  could  not  be  entrusted  with 
so  spiritual  a  function.  God  must  needs  reserve  it  for 
himself.  And  rather  than  commit  it  to  any  civil  govern- 
ment, to  any  ecclesiastical  functionary  or  body,  He  who 
knew  the  end  from  the  beginning — and  who  foresaw  all 
the  mischiefs  resulting  from  such  unauthorized  usages  in 
the  Christian  church — would  authorize  nothing  of  the 
kind  among  the  Hebrews,  but  would  rather  resort  to  the 
alternative  of  hereditary  descent,  under  such  checks  as  He 
knew  His  providential  government  could  interpose.  And 
as  soon  as  a  more  spiritual  church  could  be  introduced, 
the  church  of  a  lineal  descent  was  to  be  displaced^  together 
with  its  appropriate  priesthood  of  i\\Q  same  lineal  descent, 
and  to  the  spiritual  niembership  of  the  New  Testament 
church — in  which  there  was  to  be  neither  Jew  nor  Greek 
— was  to  be  committed,  as  to  a  brotherhood  of  saints^  the 
same  privileges  and  responsibilities  in  the  election  of 
church  officers  that  the  common  brotherhood  of  man  are 
to  exercise  in  civil  matters — the  commonwealth  being 
composed  of  all  its  resident  members  and  charged  with 
the  administration  of  justice — the  church  being  composed 
of  the  spiritual  members  of  Christ's  mystical  body,  and 
charged  with  the  teaching  of  his  doctrine,  and  the  exem- 
plification of  his  spiritual  life,  for  the  instrumental  instruc- 
tion and  renovation  of  the  woild. 

The  hereditary  Hebrew  priesthood,  therefore,  rightly 
understood,  in  its  connexions  and  causes,  so  far  from  af- 
fording any  warranty  or  precedent  for  the  man-made  and 
man-governed  hierarchies  that  are  said  to  have  been  de- 
rived from  it,  furnishes  a  strong  argument  against  them. 
It  was  placed  at  the  greatest  possible  remove  from  human 
control — iis  priests  receiving  no  appointment  from  man, 
and  being  amenable  to  no  earthly  tribunal,  ecclesiastical 
or  civil.     Is  it  not  marvellous  that  priesthoods  and  hierar 


198  DEMOCRACY  OF  OHRTSTIANITT. 

chiesnotoriousljr  of  human  origin,  and  driven  to  the  necessi- 
ty of  vindicating  their  clainms  to  validity  by  insisting  that 
Christ  established  no  ecclesiastical  order,  but  left  that  mat- 
ter altogether  at  the  discretion  of  his  disciples,  to  be  modi- 
fied at  their  pleasure,  should  nevertheless  vindicate  their 
claims  to  antiquity  by  adducing  their  fanciful  resemblan- 
ces to  the  Jewish  priesthood,  confined  as  that  was  to  a 
divine  pattern  and  tolerating  nowhere  any  human  control 
or  modification  \ 

Certain  forms  of  hierarchal  polity  are  claimed  to  be  af- 
ter the  pattern  of  the  Levitical,  because  three  distinct 
grades  of  ecclesiastics,  corresponding,  it  is  said,  to  the 
high  priests,  the  priests,  and  the  Levitesof  the  Hebrews. 
To  make  good  the  supposed  parallel  in  the  particulars  for 
which  this  polity  is  distinguished,  it  should  be  made  to 
appear  that  in  the  Hebrew  economy,  the  lower  grades 
were  commissioned  by  authority  of  the  higher,  and  held 
their  offices  at  the  good  pleasure  of  their  superiors,  who 
exercised  also  the  power  of  deposing  them  from  office. 
It  should  moreover  be  made  to  appear  that  the  higher 
grade  held  the  prerogative  of  advancing  and  promoting 
the  lower — that  they  exercised  the  right  of  naming  their 
successors,  of  deciding  who  should  be  Levites,  who  should 
be  priests,  and  who  should  be  high  priests,  or  that  in  some 
way,  these  matters  were  to  be  decided  in  ecclesiastical  con- 
clave, unbarring  the  fltood  gates  of  ecclesiastical  ambition, 
emulation,  servility,  patronage,  sycophancy,  venality  and 
corruption.  All  which,  upon  the  face  of  the  inspired  rec- 
ord, is  the  very  opposite  of  the  facts  of  the  case. 

Similar  remarks,  with  incidental  variations,  might  be  made 
in  respect  to  kindred  ecclesiastical  arrangements,  where  the 
three  orders  of  clergy  are  not  preserved,  but  where  Hebrew 
precedent,  anterior  to  the  times  of  the  New  Testament,  is  cited, 
and  where,  notwithstanding,  the  phenomenon  is  witnessed,  of 
a  clergy  self-originated,  self-perpetuated,  holding  the  keys  of 
admission  into  the  clerical  body,  and  exercising  the  preroga- 
tive of  deposition  from  the  clerical  office,  which  usages  find  no 


DEMOCRACY  OF  CHRISTIANITY.  199 

parallel  and  receive  no  countenance  from  the  ecclesiastical  ar- 
rangements of  the  Hebrews. 

In  the  Hebrew  economy  the  locality  of  the  high  priest  and 
officiating  priesthood  was  fixed  at  the  sanctuary  of  the  nation, 
at  that  "place  which  the  Lord  should  choose."  The  Levites 
were  severally  located  in  their  respective  cities,  and  whenever 
a  Levite  wished  to  reside  at  the  place  of  the  sanctuary  and 
take  a  part  in  the  services  there  to  be  rendered,  the  law  ex- 
pressly made  provision  for  his  doing  so.  The  matter  did  not 
await  the  decision  of  the  high  priest,  or  the  assent  of  the  priest- 
hood, or  of  the  Levites.  The  individual  made  the  exchange  of 
residence  at  his  own  option,  and  according  to  "  the  desire  of 
his  mind"  assured  of  an  equality  of  support  with  his  brethren 
(Deut.  xviii.  6-8,)  in  striking  contrast  with  those  modern  ec- 
clesiastical arrangements  which  commit  the  location  of  the  in- 
dividual minister  to  the  decision  of  his  superiors  in  clerical 
rank,  or  to  some  ecclesiastical  body,  sometimes  forbidding  him 
to  labor  where  his  services  are  needed  and  would  be  gratefully 
appreciated  and  sustained  by  the  people,  were  the  parties  only 
at  liberty  to  act  for  themselves,  sometimes  holding  the  rod  of 
starvation  over  a  minister  and  his  family,  to  humble  him  into 
unworthy  comphances,  and  in  other  rehgious  communities  com- 
pelling an  artificial  and  needless  vagrancy  in  the  mass  of  the 
dependent  clergy  that  they  may  be  the  more  effectually  con- 
trolled and  wielded  by  the  dominant  few. 

In  the  Hebrew  polity,  the  priesthood  had  nothing  to  do  in 
the  matter  of  ecclesiastical  leo-islation,  creed  makino-,  or  au- 
thoritative  decisions  of  theological  controversies  among  the  peo- 
ple or  the  clergy,  by  decretals,  prohibitions,  or  canons.  Such 
at  least,  from  the  significant  silence  of  Moses,  as  we  read  him, 
w^e  conclude  must  have  been  the  original  fact  in  the  ecclesiasti- 
cal constitution  of  the  Hebrews,  whatever  unauthorized  usages 
may  have  appeared  afterwards.  The  ecclesiastical  as  well  as 
the  civil  code  was  delivered  to  the  Hebrews  to  be  obeyed,  not 
to  be  remodelled,  and  there  was  the  same  absence  of  legisla- 
tive power  and  of  a  legislative  body  or  functionary,  in  the  one 
case  as  in  the  other. 


200  DEMOCRACY    OF  CHRISTIANITY.  s      . 

To  the  priests  it  appertained,  officially  and  statedly,  to  teacli 
the  people  the  law,  and  instruct  them  in  the  doctrines  of  rehgion 
and  duties  of  moralit}^,  but  not  to  the  exclusion  orthe  silencing 
of  other  teachers  not  belonging  to  the  clerical  body,  or  to  the 
house  of  Aaron  or  the  hneage  of  Levi.  No  fact  in  the  history 
of  the  Hebrews  is  more  evident  or  outstanding  than  this,  even 
after  the  subversion  of  the  commonwealth  and  quite  down  to 
the  times  of  our  Savior. 

In  another  connexion  we  have  alluded  to  this  feature  of  the 
Mosaic  dispensation,  have  adverted  to  the  mission  of  the  proph- 
ets, of  different  tribes,  and  have  named  a  number  of  distin- 
guished preachers  besides  those  usually  denominated  proph- 
ets, yet  in  no  way  connected  with  the  Levites  or  the  priest- 
hood. We  introduce  this  feature  again,  in  illustration  and 
proof  of  the  statement  just  now  made,  that  ecclesiastical  legis- 
lation and  authoritative  theological  decision  and  the  silencing 
of  supposed  heresy  or  error  on  biblical  questions,  did  not  per- 
tain to  the  Hebrew  priesthood.  Wherever  these  functions  are 
claimed  and  exercised  by  the  clergy  norehgious  teachin^^  must 
be  tolerated  but  that  of  the  regularly  authorized  clergy,  and 
all  lay  preaching  must  be  silenced  of  course.  This  v/as  never 
systenaatically  attempted,  that  we  know  of,  among  the  He- 
brews. Moses  declared  exphcitly  his  desire  that  all  the  Lord's 
people  would  prophecy,  and  he  sharply  rebuked  those  who  en- 
vied Eldad  and  Medad,  for  his  sake,  requesting  that  he  would 
forbid  them.  (Numb.  xi.  26,  29.)  In  the  synagogue  worship, 
a  general  freedom  of  remark  and  of  inquiry  is  known  to  have 
been  indulo-ed.  This  accounts  for  the  fact  that  Jesus  of  Naza- 
reth,  the  carpenter's  son,  and  not  of  the  tribe  of  Levi,  rejected 
as  his  claims  were,  hated  and  persecuted  as  he  was,  found 
ready  access,  on  the  Sabbath,  to  the  ears  of  the  people  in  the 
synagogues,  wherever  he  went.  In  addressing  the  people  in 
the  synagogue  on  the  Sabbath,  he  only  exercised  the  common 
privileges  of  his  countrymen,  to  which  every  body  had  been 
accustomed,  from  time  immemorial,  so  that  the  simple  fact  of  a 
carpenter's  preaching,  aside  from  the  power  and  authority  of 
his   discourses,  his   doctrine,   his  reproofs,   and  the  attendant 


DEMOCRACY  OF  CIIRISTIANITV.  201 

miracles,  appears  to  have  created  no  opposition  or  excitement. 
Among  all  the  charges  of  disorder  and  disorganization  brought 
against  him,  t]\e  offence  of  lay  preaching  was  never  put  into 
the  indictment.  Even  during  that  dog-star  reign  of  hierarchal 
domination  and  persecution,  the  chief  priests  who  "  feared  the 
people"  knew  better  than  to  assail  directly  their  cherished  free- 
dom of  speech  in  the  synagogues.  In  the  same  manner  the 
seventy  disciples  sent  out  by  the  Savior,  before  his  crucifixion, 
the  twelve  apostles,  fishermen  of  Galilee,  and  other  disciples, 
afterwards,  gained  the  ears  of  the  people.  No  Jew  thought 
of  calling  in  question  the  right  of  a  Jew  to  teach  religion.  Not 
only  in  the  land  of  Palestine,  but  in  the  Grecian  cities,  and 
throughout  the  Roman  empire,  wherever  the  dispersed  ,Tews 
had  their  synagogues,  and  the  Jews'  religion  was  tolerated, 
there  was  ordinarily  an  opportunity  for  the  Christianized  Jews 
to  preach.  To  this  fact,  the  early  introduction  of  the  gospel, 
throughout  the  then  civilized  world,  is  to  be  traced.  The  He- 
brew right  of  free  speech  in  religious  assemblies,  dating  back 
to  the  era  of  Moses,  was  among  God's  previous  preparatives 
for  the  spread  of  the  gospel.  When  Paul  and  his  company 
came  to  Antioch,  in  Pisidia,  where  their  reputation  as  heretics 
and  disorganizers  must  have  preceded  them,  and  their  pres- 
ence, doubtless  was  dreaded,  "  after  the  reading  of  the  law 
and  the  prophets,  the  rulers  of  the  synagogue  sent  unto  them, 
saying,  Ye  men  and  brethren,  if  ye  have  any  word  of  exhorta- 
tion to  the  people,  say  on."  (Acts  xiii.  15.)  The  common  or- 
der of  the  synagogue  must  needs  be  preserved,  and  the  com- 
mon civiHties  of  Hebrew  worshippers  extended  to  the  visitants, 
as  Hebrew  brethren. 

And  not  in  the  synagogue  alone  was  this  freedom  of  speech 
cherished.  In  the  temple  at  Jerusalem,  and  "  in  the  last  day, 
that  great  day  of  the  feast,"  while  the  chief  priests,  in  the  midst 
of  their  solemnities,  were  thirsting  for  his  blood,  Jesus,  the 
Nazarine,  serenely  hfted  up  his  majestic  voice  among  the  wor- 
shippers, unharmed.  He  was  a  Hebrew,  in  a  religious  assem- 
bly of  HebreAvs,  and  it  would  produce  "  an  uproar  among  the 
people"— of  course  it  would— if  Hebrew  rights  and  privileges, 


202  DExMOCRACY  OF  CHRISTIANITY. 

and'even  in  the  midst  of  their  annual  festival,  should  be  in- 
fringed by  undertaking  to  silence  him.  In  some  other  manner 
than  by  arresting  the  Nazarene  as  a  disturber  of  their  worship, 
at  some  other  time  than  when  he  was  addressing  the  people 
in  the  temple,  must  they  contrive  to  "  lay  hands  on  him."  Even 
at  twelve  years  old,  in  that  same  temple,  had  he  astonished 
the  Sanhedrim  with  his  wisdom,  his  understanding,  and  his 
answers.  Well  might  they  be  astonished  at  these  ;  for  the 
mere  fact  that  a  Hebrew  youth  should  come  into  the  annual 
theological  convention  of  the  nation,  and  sit  among  the  Doctors, 
both  hearing  them  and  asking  them  questions,  does  not  appear 
to  have  been  the  thing  they  marvelled  at.  He  was  an  He- 
brew youth,  and  why  should  he  not  be  a  theological  inquirer 
on  so  befitting  an  occasion  ? 

If  such  were  the  ecclesiastical  usages  of  that  period,  what 
must  they  have  been  in  the  times  of  the  old  Hebrew  common- 
wealth, ere  yet  the  liberties  of  the  people  had  been  in  a  meas- 
ure subverted,  by  departures  from  the  code  of  Moses  ?  Or  who 
beheves  that  the  priesthood,  as  he  left  it,  possessed  the  prerog- 
ative of  stifling  theological  inquiry,  of  legislating  religious  in- 
vestigation into  silence,  of  substituting  authoritative  decretals, 
bulls,  decisions,  and  prohibitions  of  free  speech,  for  patient  in- 
struction, and  affectionate  appeal?  And  if  a  priesthood  or 
clerical  body  instituted  by  God  himself,  and  installed  by  mi- 
raculous manifestations'  was  thus  modest,  attempting  no  mo- 
nopoly of  religious  teaching,  no  suppression  of  free  speech,  no 
proscription  of  theological  investigation,  no  exercise  of  legisla- 
tive functions  over  the  Church,  what  shall  be  thought  of  pre- 
lates and  ecclesiastical  bodies  who  attempt  all  this  without  ex- 
hibiting any  credentials  of  their  jvre  divino,  sometimes  with- 
out pretending  to  have  any,  and  disclaiming  it,  and  acting  on 
no  higher  authority  than  is  derived  from  their  predecessors 
who  either  assumed  it,  or  received  it  from  a  man  like  them- 
selves, some  teacher  of  religion,  or  self-organized  body  of  reli- 
gious teachers — some  monarch  or  legislative  assembly  to  whom 
God  never  committed  the  task  of  furnishing  an  ecclesiastical 
polity  for  his  Church  %     Above  all,  what  shall  be  said  when 


DEMOCRACY  OF  CHRISTIAxNirV.  203 

all  this  is  kept  in  countenance  by  appealing  to  the  precedent 
of  the  Levitical  priesthood,  long  since  abolished,  yet  furnishing 
no  example  of  such  usages  while  it  did  exist,  and  constituted 
by  a  code  altogether  inconsistent  with  the  introduction  of  them? 


CHAPTER  XIV. 

RELATION    OF    THE    PRIESTHOOD    TO    THE    COMMONWEALTH. 

Having  thus  examined  both  the  civil  and  the  ecclesiastical 
polity  of  the  Hebrews,  we  come  now  to  consider  their  mutual 
relation  to  each  other,  particularly  the  bearing  of  the  latter  up- 
on the  former.  If  the  Hebrew  commonwealth  standing  by 
itself,  appears  singularly  democratic,  how  much  of  that  feature 
does  it  lose  by  its  connexion  with  the  priesthood  ?  If  the  priest- 
hood in  the  hght  in  which  it  has  now  been  presented,  appears  dem- 
ocratic in  the  comparison  with  modern  hierarchal  arrangements, 
how  much  does  its  connexion  with  the  commonwealth  detract 
from  its  otherwise  democratic  tendencies,  or  communicate  to  it 
an  aristocratic  bearing?  What  foundation  is  there  for  citing 
the  polity  of  Moses,  as  an  exemplification  of  the  principle  of 
Religious  Establishments,  as  that  term  is  now  used,  a  prece- 
dent and  a  warranty  for  what  is  denominated  a  union  of 
Church  and  State  1 

It  is  admitted  that  in  some  respects,  there  was  a  relation  be- 
tween the  Church  and  the  State,  with  the  Hebrews,  that  does 
not  exist  in  such  of  our  modern  communities  as  have  no  Reli- 
gious Establishments,  no  union  of  Church  and  State;  and 
where,  moreover,  (as  in  most  or  all  instances  of  such  commu- 
nities) the  Church  and  its  membership  comprise  a  body  more 
select  than  the  state  or  the  nation,  with  its  subjects  or  its  citi- 
zens. 

l4is   difference  between  such  modern  communities,  (the 


204:  DEMOCRACY    OF    CHRISTIANITY. 

present  Nortli  American  States,  for  example,)  and  the  Hebrew 
commonwealth, .  arises  from  the  Hebrew  peculiarity,  already 
noticed,  namely,  the  constitution  of  both  the  church  and  the 
state,  upon  the  common  basis  of  the  family  relation,  and  by  the 
process  of  lineal  descent. 

This  feature  of  the  Hebrew  church,  and  of  the  Hebrew 
state,  we  have  called  pecuhar,  there  having  been,  so  far  as  we 
are  acquainted,  no  other  instance  of  the  kind,  ancient  or  mod- 
ern ;  none  at  least,  in  which  both  facts  were  combined.  And 
we  say  that  this  feature,  which  runs  the  boundaries  of  the 
state,  in  respect  to  its  constituency  audits  subjects,  in  the  same 
track  with  the  boundaries  of  the  church  in  its  membership,  is 
a  feature  appropriate  only  to  the  condition  which  gave  rise  to 
it  and  made  it  inevitable,  viz. :  the  founding  of  the  church  and 
the  founding  of  the  state,  upon  the  basis  of  family  affinity  and 
lineal  descent.  When  vre  have  a  modern  state  and  a  modern 
church  constituted  on  that  basis,  both  embracing  the  same 
community,  it  will  be  in  time  to  cite  the  precedent  of  the  He- 
brews, in  favor  of  church  and  state  unions.  Until  then  the 
precedent  cannot  be  followed  in  reality. 

But  there  is  no  such  modern  state,  nor  likely  to  be.  Nei- 
ther is  tliere  any  such  modern  church.  There  is  no  modern 
community  constituted,  or  in  a  condition  to  be  constituted,  in 
this  respect,  like  the  Hebrew.  And  to  take  a  modern  commu- 
nity and  attempt,  by  an  artificial  process,  to  make  it  resemble 
the  Hebrew,  (which  had  the  rite  of  circumcision  as  the  badge 
of  its  family  unity)  in  the  relation  the  church  bears  to  the 
state,  is  to  attempt  what  is  impossible,  and  the  failure,  which 
is  inevitable,  can  be  concealed  only  by  palming  off  a  mere  in- 
cident or  appearance  for  the  thing  itself.  There  never  has 
been  and  pretty  certainly  there  never  will  be  another  church 
and  another  state  sustaining  towards  each  other  the  same  re- 
lation as  the  Hebrew  church  and  state  sustained  to  each  other. 
If  such  a  fact  could  be  re-produced,  the  church  would  not 
be  a  Chrisfian  church,  for  no  such  church  "can  be  founded  on 
the  basis  of  family  affinity  and  lineal  descent,  it  being  a  funda- 
mental principle  of  the  Christian   or  New  Testament  polity, 


DEMOCRACV    OF    CHRISTIANITY.  205 

that  ill  the  Christian  church  there  is  neither  Jew  nor  Greek, 
barbarian  nor  Scythian,  but  all  are  one  in  Christ,  the  middle 
wall  of  partition  between  Jews  and  Gentiles  (upon  which  par- 
tition both  the  Hebrew  church  and  state  were  founded)  beino- 
broken  down,  never  to  be  rcbuilded.  That  stage  in  the  pro- 
gressive elevation  of  humanity  has  been  gone  over,  and  can 
never  be  travelled  again.  This  is  only  saying  that  the  He« 
brew  act  of  the  drama  of  humanity  is  not  to  be  reproduced. 
As  well  might  we  dream  of  going  back  into  the  patriarchal 
period,  the  antedehuian  or  the  Adamic. 

The  attempt  to  follow,  in  this  particular,  the  Hebrew  polity, 
has  never  succeeded,  because  God  never  intended  it  should, 
which  is  evident  from  His  never  having  directed  the  New  Tes- 
tament church  to  do  such  a  thing,  nor  furnished  it  with  the 
facts  in  His  Providence  that  could  make  it  practicable:  but  on 
the  contrary,  has  laid  down  a  rule  of  membership  which  con- 
flicts with  that  of  the  Hebrew,  and  in  His  Providence  has 
placed  the  ancient  usage  out  of  the  reach  of  the  moderns. 

To  the  New  Testament  church  God  has  parcelled  off  no  one 
portion  of  the  earth's  territory,  as  He  did  to  the  Hebrew,  on 
which  to  erect  a  civil  and  an  ecclesiastical  commonwealth,  with 
directions  so  to  divide  the  soil  among  the  membership  that  all 
others  shall  be  excluded.  Its  spiritual  membership  and  their 
mission  to  "go  into  all  the  world,  and  preach  the  gospel  to  ev- 
ery [creature,"  are  inconsistent  with  such  an  arrangement. 
The  New  England  emigrants  or  rather  their  successors,  seem 
to  have  cherished  such  an  idea,  but  it  could  not  be  realized, 
for  the  reasons  that  have  already  been  stated.  The  attempt 
led  them  into  acts  of  persecution,  and  added  disgrace  to  defeat. 
But  if  modern  religious  establishments  and  church  and  state 
unions  have  never  truly  followed  and  never  can  follow  the  He- 
brew precedent,  they  have  estabhshed  usages  and  precedents 
of  their  own,  which  no  well  instructed  Hebrew  could  have  an- 
ticipated as  claiming  affinity  with  the  Mosaic,  and  could  never 
consent  to  recognize  as  being  in  harmony  with  it. 

Though  the  Hebrew  church  did  sustain  the  peculiar  rela- 
tion to  the  commonwealth,  already  described,  that  relation  did 

10 


306  DEMOCRACY    OF    CHRISTIANITY. 

not  resemble,  in  scarcely  any  of  its  leading  features  or  conse- 
quences, the  modern  arrangements  professedly  derived  from  it. 

What  we  call  a  religious  establisliment  or  a  church  and 
state  union,  in  modern  church  history,  or  from  the  era  of  Con- 
stantine  downwards,  pre-supposes  the  existence  of  two  things, 
as  essential  to  its  existence,  neither  of  which  appears  to  have 
bad  any  place  in  the  polity  and  condition  of  the  Hebrews  as 
contemplated  and  established  by  Moses. 

In  all  such  religious  establishments  or  church  and  state 
unions  there  is,  and  must  be,  in  the  first  place,  an  all-control- 
ling overshadowing  and  centralized  civil  power  over  the  state 
or  nation,  called  the  government,  the  civil  authority,  distinct 
jfrom  the  people,  or  at  least  a  legislative  body  or  functionary, 
clothed  with  the  law  making  power,  and  some  well  armed  ex- 
ecutive functionary,  the  same  or  another,  to  give  the  legisla- 
tire  action  effect.  If,  in  some  instances,  as  in  the  colonies  of 
New  England,  this  description  does  not-fully  apply,  there  fol- 
lows a  corresponding  weakness  in  the  religious  establishment, 
and  the  union  between  the  church  and  the  state  proves  imper- 
fect and  transient.  A  "  strong  government"  distinct  from  the 
people,  and  efficiently  controlling  them,  is  always  held  to  be 
of  fundamental  importance,  by  the  conservators  of  religious  es- 
tabhshments,  or  unions  of  church  and  state.  Without  this, 
the  entire  system  is  a  manifest  failure,  and  soon  vanishes,  even 
in  name. 

In  the  second  place,  there  must  be  in  all  such  religious  es- 
tablishments an  equally  authoritative  ecclesiastical  power,  re- 
siding in  some  spiritual  functionary  or  ecclesiastical  body,  ex- 
ercising, in  religious  concernments,  a  control  over  the  brother 
hood,  the  masses,  analagous  to  that  which  the  civil  govern- 
ment just  now  described  exercises  in  secular  affairs,  involvino- 
in  reality,  (though  sometimes  verbally  disclaimed)  the  law- 
making or  legislative  power,  and  manifesting  itself  in  the  en- 
actment of  creeds,  the  establishment  of  rituals  and  formulas, 
the  promulgation  of  decretals,  canons,  rules,  digests,  or  disci- 
plines; all  these  backed  up  with  corresponding  judicial  action, 
trials,  decisions,  sentences,  excommunications — a  jurisdiction 


DEMOCRACY  OF  CHRISTIANITY.  207 

provincial  or  national,  if  not  universal,  and  lacking  nothing  but 
physical  force  to  make  itself  obeyed  as  implicitly  as  the  most 
absolute  government  on  the  earth.     Such  is  the  full  descrip- 
tion of  this  element,  though  it  manifests  itself  in  different  de- 
grees, modifications,  or  aspects,  corresponding  perhaps  with  the 
varied  stages  of  its  growth,  progress,  or  decline.     This  spirit- 
ual authority  sometimes  becomes  formidable,  and  even  abso- 
lute and  all-controlling,  even  in  the  absence  of  physical  force, 
in  virtue  of  its  hold  upon  the  superstitious  hopes  and  fears  of 
the  people,  its  supposed  possession  of  the  keys  of  paradise,  its 
power  to  destroy  both  soul  and  body  in  hell,  its  pretended  pre- 
rogative of  dispensing  or  of  withholding  pardon,  its  monopoly 
of  the  use  and  application  of  the  ritual  seals  (as  in  the  form  of 
baptisms  and  eucharists)  by  means  of  which  the  channels  of 
divine  favor  are  supposed  to  be  opened  or  closed  at  pleasure. 
When  all  these  elements  of  ecclesiastical  and  spiritual  domin- 
ion arc  combined,  and  the  training  and  temper  of  the  people 
assimulated  with  them,  there  needs  no  physical  force  to  make 
it  as  absolute  as  the  most  autocratic  could  desire.     It  needs  no 
union  with  the  secular  arm,  then.     If  sufficiently  extended  in 
in  its  influence  and  jurisdiction,  it  may   bid  defiance  to  empe- 
rors, it  may  dispense  crowns  at  its  leisure,  it  may  absolve  sub- 
jects from  their  oaths  of  allegiance,  it  may  depose  kings  and 
set  up  whom  it  pleases  in  their  stead.     It  may  preach  up  cru- 
sades, raise  armies,  or  disband  them  at  its  bidding.     If  such 
phenomena  have  chiefly  been  witnessed  when  the  two  ele- 
ments of  power,  the  civil  and  the  ecclesiastical,  have  been  in  a 
measure  combined,  it  has  only  been  because  the  ecclesiastical 
and  spiritual  element   has  failed   to  penetrate  and  control  the 
entire  masses,  including  the  restless,  the  warlike,  the  aspiring, 
without  holding  out  to  them  the  baits  of  earthly  pre-eminence 
which  they  prefer  to  future  rewards. 

A  union  of  church  and  state  is  the  combination  of  the  civil 
and  the  ecclesiastical  authorities  that  have  been  described.  A 
religious  establishment  is  the  ecclesiastical  power,  backed  up 
and  supported  by  the  civil,  both  reposing  upon  the  military 
arm.     This  union  may  assume  varied  forms.     Sometimes,  as 


208  DEMOCRACY  OF  CHRISTIANITY. 

in  Italy,  the  ecclesiastical  pontiff  himself  may  assume  the  reins 
of  civil  power,  over  the  territory  more  immediately  under  his 
eye,  and  within  his  reach.  Thus  fortified,  and  surrounded  by 
nations  that  recognize  his  ecclesiastical  authority,  whose  civil 
governments  enforce  his  spiritual  claims,  and  sustain  his  hordes 
of  subservient  clergy,  he  may  extend  his  political  power  over 
all  Europe,  may  hold  emperors  as  his  vassals,  and  hterally  com- 
pel them,  on  public  occasions  to  hold  his  stirrups,  or  kiss  his 

feet. 

Again,  these  monarchs  may  throw  off  that  yoke.  A  Henry 
VlII.  of  Eno-land,  taking  advantage  of  changes  in  public  opin- 
ion, may  not  only  assert  his  political  independence,  but  may 
proclaim  himself  head  of  the  church,  and  repudiate  the  spirit- 
ual authority  of  the  pope,  in  order  to  become  pope  over  Eng- 
land himself. 

In  both  these  cases,  we  see  the  highest  civil  and  ecclesias- 
tical functions  combined  in  the  same  personage.  In  other  cases 
the  civil  and  eccclesiastical  functionaries  or  bodies  may  be  kept 
quite  distinct,  the  civil  enforcing  the  ecclesiastical  and  receiv- 
ing only  its  spiritual  influence  and  aid -in  return.  In  England, 
to  this  day,  the  reigning  monarch  is  styled  head  of  the  church, 
and  the  principal  ecclesiastical  preferments  are  made  by  the 
Crown,  while  the  bishops  sit,  as  civil  legislators,  in  the  House 
of  Lords.  Not  very  unfrequently  the  ecclesiastical  functiona- 
ries become  restive  under  secular  control  and  make  a  bluster 
of  asserting  their  spiritual  prerogatives,  but  the  necessity  of 
state  pay  commonly  brings  them  to  terms.  At  other  times 
the  state  feels  the  inconvenience  of  the  connnexion,  and  to  paci- 
fy rival  ecclesiastics,  patronizes  two  or  three  different  religions 
at  the  same  time,  at  least  in  different  parts  of  the  empire,  as 
the  British  government  is  now  doing.  In  some  nations,  non- 
conformity with  the  established  religion  is  tolerated,  as  in  Eng- 
land, but  this  is  under  certain  disabilities  and  exactions,  and 
comtnonly  in  consequence  of  a  struggle :  in  other  states  there 
is  no  tolerance  allowed. 

In  all  these  variations  the  same  principle  is  exemplified — the 
control  and  the  enforcement  of  religion  by  a  human  civil  gov- 


DEMOCRACY  OF  CHRISTIANITY.  209 

ernment,  at  its  own  discretion,  and  without  any  express  com- 
mand or  authority  from  God — the  subjection  of  the  ecclesias- 
tical element  of  a  community  to  the  civil  authorities,  or  vice 
versa  the  assumption  of  civil  power  by  the  ecclesiastics,  as  such, 
or  yet  again,  a  compromise  and  mutual  agreement  between 
the  two,  in  which  an  autocracy  or  aristocracy  in  the  state 
strengthens  itself  by  an  alliance  with  a  kindred  element  in  the 
church,  conscious  of  its  need  of  secular  and  compulsory  aid — 
two  despotisms,  a  civil  and  an  ecclesiastical,  mutually  propping 
each  other,  or  fusing  themselves  into  one,  the  better  to  main- 
tain themselves,  in  opposition  to  the  rights  of  the  people. 

Now  the  reader  of  the  preceding  pages  will  perceive,  at  once, 
the  utter  impossibility  of  such  a  religious  establishment,  such  a 
church  and  state  union,  as  has  been  described,  in  connexion 
■with  the  institutions  of  Moses,  and  that  for  the  best  of  reasons. 
The  elements  for  such  an  arrangement  did  not  exist,  and  could 
not  without  the  previous  subversion  of  the  institutions  of  Moses 
w^hich  superseded  and  displaced  them.  There  were  no  such 
ecclesiastical  authorities  to  be  "  established,"  and  there  was  no 
such  civil  government  or  secular  authority  to  establish  them! 
No  such  union  of  church  and  state  could  have  been  consuma- 
ted,  because  there  w^as  no  such  church  and  no  such  state  to 
be  united!  There  was  indeed  a  church  and  there  was  a  com- 
monwealth ;  but  neither  the  one  nor  the  other  answered  at  all  to 
the  description  that  has  been  given,  and  which  (as  w^ill  have 
been  seen)  is  essential  to  a  religious  establishment,  a  chuich  and 
state  union,  in  the  current  sense  of  those  terms.  That  is  to 
say — there  was  no  overshadowing  civil  governorment,  in  dis- 
tinction from  the  people,  at  any  central  point — no  legislature, 
no  king,  ho  president,  no  governor,  no  national  chief  executive, 
no  national  treasury  in  their  keeping,  no  standing  army  at 
their  beck- — nothing  in  fact  but  the  simple  judiciary  that  has 
been  described,  a  judiciary  composed  of  the  people  themselves, 
or  of  the  local  judges  elected  by  them,  with  the  addition  of  a 
priest  with  the  judge  in  the  court  of  final  resort. 

Suppose  then  there  /md  been  such  an  ecclesiastical  author- 
ity as  has  been  described,  legislating*  in  all  religious  affairs, 


210  DEMOCRACY  OF  CHRISTIANITY. 

and  seeking  to  strengthen  itself  against  popular  insubordination 
and  opposition  by  appealing  to  the  strong  arm  of  secular  power 
— to  what  or  to  whom  should  the  application  be  made  ?   With 
whom  or  with  what  could  "the  church"  (that  is,  the  ecclesias- 
cal  dignitaries)  be  allied  ?   From  what  quarter  should  "  the  es- 
tablishment "  be  sought  ?   Imagine  the  entire  civil  government 
of  Great  Britain  to  consist  of  judges  chosen  by  bands  of  tens, 
fifties,  hundreds,  and  thousands,  to   settle  controversies  and 
punish  crimes,  the  people  in  parishes  reserving  to  themselves, 
convened  en  masse,  the  right  to  adjudicate  all  capital  offences, 
with  only  one  additional  court,  located  at  London,  with  an  elect- 
ed judge  and  a  priest  (a  bishop  if  you  please)  to  act,  when  reques- 
ted, as  court  of  reference  in  difficult  cases — do  away  king  and 
ministers,  lords  and  commons,  army  and  navy,  court  of  king's 
bench  and  all  other  courts  except  those  just  described — then 
imagine  the  bishops  and  clergy  of  the  Church  of  England  de- 
siring "  an  establishment,"  a  "union  of  church  and  state,"  and 
we  have  an  outline  of  the  picture !     The  application  would  be, 
in  effect,  to  the  commoners  of  London,  to  the  operatives  of  Bir- 
mingham and  Manchester,  the  coal-diggers  of  NeAv- Castle,  the 
hard  handed  cultivators  of  the  soil,  (whoever  might  claim  to 
own  it,)  to  the  majority  of  the  people  of  Great  Britain,  irrespec- 
tive of  condition  or  avocation.    What  would  the  arch-bishop  of 
Canterbury  think  of  such  an  establishment^  of  such  an  union? 
But  then,  in  the  ecclesiastical  arrangements  of  the  Hebrews 
there  happens  to  have  been  (as  has  already  been  shown)  noth- 
ing at  all  resembling  the  Episcopal  hierarchy  of  the  Church  of 
England,  or  of  the  Church  of  Rome,  with  their  ecclesiastical, 
theological,  and  ritual  legislation,  powers  of  ordination,  prefer- 
ment, self-perpetuation,  monopoly  of  preaching,  power  of  the 
rituals,  power  of  the  keys.     What  the  Hebrew  priesthood  did 
for  the  people  or  on  behalf  of  them,  was  done,  not  at  their  own 
discretion — withholding  or  giving  as  they  pleased.   Their  work 
was  appointed  them  by  God  himself,  not  by  their  own  self-made 
canons,  and  it  was  a  work  to  be  done,  and  to  be  done  impar- 
tially for  all.     It  conferred  on  them  no  power  over  the  people, 
to  pardon  or  to  withhold  pardon,  to  send  them  to  purgatory  or 


DEMOCRACY  OF  CHRISTIANITY.  211 

to  paradise,  to  regenerate  tliem  or  to  leave  tliem  unregenera- 
ted,  to  confirm  or  not  to  confirm  them,  to  bury  them  or  to 
leave  them  unburied,  and  all  at  their  own  option ! 

The  Hebrew  priesthood  had  nothing  that  an  autocratic  civil 
government  could  conveniently  wield  for  its  ends.    The  people 
had  a  priesthood  provided  for  them  by  God  himself,  not  to  be 
appointed  by  their  civil  rulers,  nor  controlled,  nor  fed,  nor  starv- 
ed, nor  taken  away  by  them.     God  had  made  all  the  appoint- 
ments, all  the   ecclesiastical  promotions,  himself;  there  was 
nothing  for  civil  government  to   do   in  that  direction:  there 
was  no  convenient  handle  by  which  "  the  government,''  if  there 
had  been  any,  distinct  from  the  people,  could  have  seized  hold 
of  the  priesthoods  and  wielded  them  as  our  modern  civil  gov- 
ernments do  their  state  paid  clergy.     And  then  again,  the  sup- 
port of  the  priesthood  was  to  come,  not  from  any  national  treas- 
ury in  the  hands  of  a  central  government  charged  with  the 
duty  of  providing  religious  functionaries,   and  sustaining   and 
paying  them.     To  the  people,  not  to  any  civil  government,  the 
responsibility  of  supporting  by  a  specified  annuity  their  heaven- 
appointed  priests  was  committed.     They   had  only  to   honor 
these  responsibilities  and  they  had  a  priesthood  devoted  to  their 
service,  and  looking  to  them  for  support,  and  had  no  occasion 
to  depend  on  smy  government  to  provide  a  priesthood  for  them, 
or  to  support  one.     Neither  the  priests  nor  the  people  were  to 
be  reduced  to  any  such  dependent  and  servile  condition.    Nei- 
ther the  government,  (if  there  were  one)  nor  the  priests,  nor 
the  people  were  under  the  temptation  ordinarily  presented,  in 
modern  times,  to  desire  what  is  called  a  Religious  Establishment 
— a  Union  of  Church  and  State. 

And  hence  the  Hebrew  history,  during  the  commonwealth, 
presents  not  the  least  semblance  of  any  such  fact,  and  not  an 
incident,  so  far  as  the  writer  has  discovered,  has  any  apparent 
bearing  in  that  direction.  Even  under  the  kings,  after  the  ^Mosaic 
commonwealth  had  been  subverted,  the  approximation  towards 
the  modern  church-and-state  usages  seems  to  have  been  but  dis- 
tant and  occasional.  Church  distraints,  (as  before  observed) 
church  support,  church  preferments,  secular  legislation  over  the 


212  DEMOCRACY  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

church,  prelitical  participation  in  secular  legislation,  state  endow- 
ments ofecclesiastical  seminaries,  ecclesiastical  complaints  of  royal 
encroachments,  kingly  jealously  of  political  pontiffs  and  priest- 
hoods— these,  most  certainly,  and  the  like  of  them,  do  not  fill 
the  space  in  the  Hebrew  history  that  they  do  in  the  European, 
and  f®r  this  distinction  there  must  have  been  a  cause.  When  some 
of  the  kings  suppressed  idolatry  and  restored  the  worship  of 
Jehovah — incidents  most  greedily  seized  upon  as  precedents — 
they  were  not  understood  as  legislating  in  matters  of  religion, 
but  only  as  executing  the  laws  of  God  himself,  explicitly  ordain- 
ed for  that  people,  and  appropriate  to  a  nation  that  was  at  once 
a  family,  a  state,  and  a  church.  For  the  monarchical  feature  of 
the  proceeding,  the  institutions  of  Moses,  however,  are  not  re- 
sponsible. A  family,  an  equal  brotherhood,  putting  away  idol- 
atry, and  an  autocratic  executive  doing  it  for  them,  may  not 
present  precisely  the  same  aspect,  though  force  in  both  cases 
may  be  employed.  The  grand  distinction,  however,  between 
the  supposed  precedent  and  the  modern  application  of  it,  lies 
in  the  divine  command  in  the  one  case  which  is  wanting  in  the 
other.  We  repeat  what  we  observed  before,  the  democratic 
principle  is  not  violated  by  any  execution  of  the  divine  com- 
mands; but  it  is  violated  when,  Avithout  any  divine  commission, 
men  undertake  to  exercise  the  legislative  authority  of  God.  The 
modern  legislation  over  religion  lacks  one  grand  element  of  va- 
lidity— the  well- attested  "Thus  saith  the  Lord." 

On  looking  over  the  Old  Testament  in  search  of  a  state-ap- 
pointed and  state-paid  clergy,  we  have  no  precedent  that  any 
worshipper  of  Jehovah  could  desire  to  claim.  There  was  Ba- 
laam, the  son  of  Beor,  appointed  and  employed  by  Balak,  king 
of  Moab.  Though  Balaam  loved  the  wages  of  unrighteousness, 
he  found  the  church  and  state  union  making  too  heavy  demands 
upon  him.  There  were  depths  of  servility  to  which  he  could 
not  descend,  and  the  union  was  dissolved.  (See  Numb.  xxii. 
and  onward.)  King  Ah ab,  likewise,  maintained  a  "religious 
tstablishment,"  but  his  priests  were  those  of  Baal,  not  of  Je- 
hovah. 

To  sum  up  all  in  a  few  words:  the  more  closely  we  study  the 


DEMOCRACY  OF  CIIRTSTIANTY.  213 

Mosaic  institutes  and  the  more  fully  v^e  imbibe  the  spirit  of 
them,  the  less  shall  we  favor  modern  "  religious  establishments" 
— ".church  and  state  unions."  God  never  provided  for  the 
Hebrews  a  civil  government  that  could  thus  be  united  to  an 
ecclesiastical  establishment;  and  He  never  provided  for  them 
an  ecclesiastical  polity  that  could  be  thus  be  united  to  the 
state.     The  thing  never  was ;  for  it  could  not  be. 

The  nations  of  our  modern  Christendom  are  under  civil  gov- 
ernments altogether  too  autocratic  to  claim  any  close  affinity 
to  the  Mosaic  commonwealth.  Even  of  our  modern  repubhcs, 
as  we  call  them,  this  is  true.  Our  ecclesiastical  arrangements, 
for  the  most  part,  and  with  few  exceptions,  are  less  democratic 
on  the  whole,  than  the  Hebrew,  notwithstanding  its  heredita- 
ry priesthood,  which  Christianity  has  abolished. 

And  as  though  this  were  not  sufficient,  our  civil  and  our  ec- 
clesiastical arrangements,  in  the  nations  that  are  under  the 
most  aristocratic  form  of  them,  must  needs  be  combined,  that 
thus  the  autocratic  principle  may  be  strengthened !  To  crown 
the  climax,  the  institutions  of  Moses  are  cited  in  defence  of  all 
this,  and  especiall}^  as  furnishing  a  precedent  for  what  are  call- 
ed religious  establishments — church  and  state  unions!  The 
reader,  it  is  hoped,  Avill  be  impressed  with  the  injustice  of  thus 
casting  the  blame  of  our  anti-democratic  institutions  and  usa- 
ges upon  Moses.  And  he  will  do  well  to  consider  whether  it 
be  credible  that  the  new  dispensation  was  intended  to  be  less 
free  and  democratic  than  the  former  one. ' 


CHAPTER  XV. 


OF  THE  MILITARY  PO^VER  Ax^IONG  THE  HEBREWS — ITS  RELATION 
TO  THE  CIVIL  GOVERNMENT  AND  TO  THE  PEOPLE. 

Incidentally,  we  have  had  occasion  to   glance  at   the 
main  facts  in  relation  to  military  power  among   the   He- 

10* 


214  DEMOCRACY    OF    CHRISTIANITY. 

brews.  Jt  is  heedful,  however,  to  recur  again  to  those 
facts,  to  collect  and  arrange  them,  that  we  may  see  the 
position  they  held  in  the  polity  of  the  Hebrews,  during  the 
ccmmonwealth. 

Standing  armies  are  proverbially   the  graves  of  repub- 
lics, and  almost  all  monarchies  have  had  their  rise  in  the 
consolidation    of  the    military    power.     Without  a  mili- 
tary   establishment   distinct  from    the   people   and  inde- 
pendent of  them,  no  autocratic    arrangements  could  be 
long   maintained.      Indeed  the  common   impression   ex- 
cept in    democratic    communities    is,   that  without  some 
such  military  establishment  neither  law    nor   order  can 
be    maintained.      And  yet  it  is  easy  to  see  that  a  gov- 
ernment   distinct   from   the  people,    and  armed    with   a 
military  power  independent  of  them,    sufficiently  strong 
to    control   them,    is    as    absolute    and    as   formidable    a 
despotism  as  can  be  conceived,     it  is  worse  than  idle,  it 
is  mockery,  it  is  insult,  for  those    who    advocate  kingly 
power — who  deny  the  political  supremacy,  under  God,  of 
the  masses  of  the  people,  and  who  likewise  maintain  that 
a  civil  government,  distinct  from  the  people,  must   wield 
military  power-— to  say,  nevertheless,  as  they  sometimes 
do,  that  the  oppressed  millions  who  are  ground  to  powder 
under  the  iron  heel  of  such  arrangements,  when  unjustly 
administered,  as  they  are  likely  to  be,  are  bound  to   rise 
up  in  rebellion  against  their  oppressors,  and  throw  off  the 
yoke.     To  say  nothing  of  the  self-contradiction   and    ab- 
surdity of  affirming  that  the  people  whose  position  as  they 
teach  should  be  simply  that  of  subjects  and  not  sovereigns, 
have  nevertheless  the  sovereign  right  to  revolutionize  the 
government — that  those  masses  who   are  not  competent 
to  select  their  rulers  at  the  ballot  box  are  qualified,  never- 
theless, to  displace  them  by  the  catridge  box— the  addi- 
tional and  practical  question  presents  itself,  how   and  by 
what  means  are  the  people  to  throw  oft^  the  mis-govern- 
menta  that  crush  them,  when  in  the  very  frame-work  and 
organization  ot  the  arrangements  under  which  they    are 


DKxMOCRACY  OF  CHRISTIANITY.  315 

placed,  the  government  is  distinct  from  the  people  and 
armed  with  a  physical  force  sufficient  to  compel  their  un- 
qualified and  abject  submission. 

Yet  there  are  philosophers,  theologians,  philanthropists, 
and  statesmen— there  are  men  claiming  all  these  charac- 
ters in  an  emment  degree— who  are  guilty  of  this  very  con- 
tradiction. They  deride  the  idea  that  thepeopLe  are  heaven- 
commissioned  to  discharge  the  responsibilities  of  civil 
government— that  the  masses  of  men  are  competent 
to    the   task    of   selecting   their   rulers  at  the  ballot-box 

they  advocate  a  government  distinct    from   the    people 

and  armed  with  a  controlling  physical  power  over  them, 
and  yet,  at  the  same  time,  they  nourish  their  contempt 
for  popular  supremacy  by  pointing  to  the  crushed  millions 
who  are  groaning  under  these  very  arrangements,  assert- 
ing it  to  be  their  bounden  duty  to  throw  off  the  mis-gev- 
ernments  they  groan  under,  and  inferring  from  their  ina- 
bility to  do  so  that  they  have  not  risen  above  the  charac- 
ter of  slaves,  and  deserve  on  the  whole  little  better  than 
their  fate ! 

Without  absolving  from  blame  the  nations  thus  degra- 
ded and  abused,  the  question  is  a  pertinent  onQ— when,  how 
and  by  what  acts  have  they  proved  themselves  unworthy 
of  freedom,  or  of  a  good  government,  or  incompetent  to 
the  task  of  self-government  by  the  arrangements  of  a 
commonwealth  %  When,  how,  and  by  what  acts,  if  not 
when  they  consented  in  the  first  place  to  come  under  a 
government  distinct  from  the  people,  and  armed  with  the 
physical  power  of  controlling  them  1  Especially,  when, 
like  the  Hebrews,  perhaps,  they  grew  weary  of  the  duties 
of  a  commonwealth,  and   desired  a   military  king  to  rule 

over  them  % 

These  thoughts  may  give  interest  to  the  inquiry— what 
was  the  position  of  the  military  power  in  the  Hebrew 
commonwealth  \  In  vain,  so  far  as  the  promotion  of  hu- 
man  freedom  was  concerned,  were  those  stupendous  mir- 
acles in  Egypt,  and  at  the  Red  Sea,  for  the  rebuke  apd 


216  DEMOCRACY    OF    CHRTSTTAXTTY. 

overthrow    of   autocratic    power    with  its  idolatrous  ac- 
companiaments  and  emblems— in  vain  were  the  arrange- 
ments made  in  the  wilderness  for  the  democratic  election 
of  their  rulers  by  the  people — in  vain  were  the  directions 
given  for  the  f  direct   exercise  of  judicial  power    by  the 
congregations  of  the  people  themselves,  for  the   admmis- 
tration  of  penal  law— in  vain  were  the  expensive   lessons 
by  which  the  Hebrew  mind  was  educated  into  the  idea  of 
universal  common  law,  m  opposition  to  that  of  the  validity 
and  authority  of  capricious  and  arbitrary  enactments  and 
decrees— in  vain  was  the  equal  division  among  the  people 
of  the  soil  of  the  promised  land— in  vain  was  the   jubilee 
that  prevented  the  perpetual  alienation  of  estates— in  vain 
were  all  these  united,  or  any  other  conceivable  safeguards 
against  despotic  usages  and  autocratic  demands,  if  after 
all,  the  people  were  to  be  put  under  the  control  of  a  mili- 
tary power  distinct  from  themselves  and  wielded,  not  by 
.    by  the  people,  but  by  a  government  in  which  the  people  did  ■ 
not  effectually  participate.      Was  there  any  such  discrep- 
ancy in  the  institutions  of  Moses— any  such    self-subver- 
sive arrangementsl  We  inquire  now  after  the  recorded  facts. 
The  prohibition  of  either  cavalry  or  war-chariots,  even 
in  the  event  of  the  subversion  of  the  commonwealth  by  an 
elective  and  limited  monarchy,  is  a  very  significant  fact, 
us  showing  that  the  Hebrews  were  not  encouraged  in  be- 
coming a  military  people,  pushing  their  conquests  in  every 
directfon,  (after  Uiey  had  once  obtained   their   promised 
inheritance)  nor  even  acting  on  the  prudential    maxim    of 
our  modern  Christendom,  "In  time  of  peace  prepare  for 
war."     In  the  absence  of  the  modern   discovery   of   gun- 
powder it  almost  amounted,  of  itself,  to   a  prohibition   of 
all  such  warlike  preparations  and  anticipations.     Without 
war-horses    or    chariots    the   love  of   military  adventure 
could   not    be   very    extensively    gratified,  nor  the  ad- 
miration  of  military    heroes   fostered,  nor    the    ambition 
of  military  commanders  encouraged.     Nor  could  the  gen- 
eralissimo oi  the  national   forces    (had  there   been   any) 


DEMOCPwVCV  OF  GHRTSTIANTTY. 


217 


whether  recognized  as  chief  magistrate,  king,  or  other- 
wise, be  enabled  to  wield  any  very  effective  instrumental- 
ity for  subjugating  the  mass  of  the  people.  Imagine  a 
divine  prohibition  of  gun-powder  to  one  of  our  modern  civil 
governments  or  its  chief  magistrate,  consider  v/ell  the  ef- 
fects and  the  implications  of  such  a  prohibition,  and  you 
have  the  spirit  and  bearing  of  this  remarkable  arrangement. 
"He  shall  not  multiply  horses  to  himself,  nor  cause  the 
people  to  return  to  Egypt  to  the  end  that  he  should  mul- 
tiply horses." — Deut.  xvii.  16. 

"  Multiplying  horses  for  chariots  of  Vv'ar  and  cavalry, 
or  for  luxury,  would  increase  the  splendor  of  the  mon- 
arch, and  form  a  ground  of  confidence  distinct  from,  and 
inconsistent  with,  a  proper  confidence  in  God,  and  with 
considering  Him  the  glory  of  Israel."  *  *  "  According- 
ly we  find  that  till  the  days  of  Solomon  horses  were  little 
used  by  the  Israelites,  and  they  had  not  much  intercourse 
with  Egypt ;  but  afterwards  the  horses  of  that  kingdom^ 
proved  a  continual  source  of  sin  and  temptation  to  them." 
— Scotfs  Commentary y  * 

Wars  of  foreign  conquest  were  virtually  forbidden  in 
the  divine  prohibition  to  disturb  the  children  of  Esau  and 
the  children  of  Lot,     CDeut.  ii.  4-9.) 

No  Hebrew  was  to  be  compelled  to  serve  ia  the  army, 
or  to  go  forth  to  battle  without  his  own  free  consent. 
(Deut.  XX.  8.) 

In  all  the  arrangements  of  Moses,  we  meet  with  nothing 
indicating  the  existence  of  a  military  power  or  a  military 
body  distinct  from  the  people.     No  provision  is  made  for 
a  standing  army,  or  a  navy— no   officials  were  appointed 
for  the  superintendency  of  them  j  none,  in  fact,  to  whom 
such  a  charge  could  have  been  appropriately   committed. 
There  was  no  legislative  nor  centralized  national  govern- 
ment to  declare  war— no  chief  magistrate,  governor,  pres- 
ident, king,  or  emperor  to   be   commander-in-chief  of  the 
army.     And  the  account  given  of  the   subversion  of  the 
commonwealth  by  the  rebellious  elders  and  people  of  Is- 
rael  (I.  Sam.  viii.)  shows  plainly   that  the  core  of  their 
rebellion  consisted  in  a  desire  to  remedy  what  they  ima- 


218  DEMOCRACY  OF  OHRTSTIANITY. 

gined  to  be  the  defect  of  the  divine  plan,  in  this  very  par- 
ticular. 

"  Nay  !  but  we  will  have  a  king  over  us,"  [said  they,] 
"that  we  may  be  like  all  the  nations,  and  that  our  king 
may  judge  us,  and  go  out  before  us,  and  fight  our  bat- 
tles."—v.  19-20. 

This  proves  that  up  to  this  period  there  was  no  such 
thing  as  a  military  power  over  the  people,  and  distinct 
from  them.  There  was  no  military  power  in  the  hands 
of  "  the  governmenf^  as  distinguished  from  the  people,  be- 
cause there  was  no  such  civil  government,  and  no  govern- 
ment so  organized  as  to  be  in  a  position  to  wield  it. 

The  people  constituted  the  state — the  people  were,  es- 
sentially, the  government,  and  aside  from  the  people,  act- 
ing spontaneously,  as  occasions  presentsd  themselves, 
there  was  no  military  power. 

The  relation  of  the  military  to  the  civil  power — the  re- 
lation of  the  military  power  to  the  people — are  both  read- 
ily understood,  when  we  perceive  that  the  civil  govern- 
ment was  the  people  acting  for  judicial  purposes,  and  that 
the  military  power  was  the  people  acting  for  the  common 
defence,  or,  in  some  instances,  for  the  execution  of  penal 
law. 

The  entire  history  already  reviewed,  corroborates  this 
statement  of  the  matter.  Joshua  was  divinely  commis- 
sioned to  conquer  Canaan  and  to  divide  it  among  the  chil- 
dren of  Israel.  In  doing  this,  there  was  no  military  dis- 
tinct from  the  people.  That  purpose  accomplished,  no 
military  establishment  remdned.  And  the  language  em- 
ployed in  the  second  chapter  of  the  Judges  implies  that  if 
the  people  had  been  true  to  the  obligations  resting  upon 
them,  the  Providence  of  God  would  have  been  their  suffi- 
cient protection,  and  no  occasion  for  their  military  judges 
would  have  existed.  These  commanders,  as  already 
shown,  exercised  functions  altogether  extraordinary,  oc- 
casional, and  temporary,  a  function  not  originally  provi- 
ded for,  in  the  institutions  of  Moses,  never  engrafted  iato 


DEMUCKAOV    OF  GIIRISTIANITY.  219 

them,  nor  permanently  retained.  So  far  from  belonging 
to  the  arrangements  of  civil  government,  they  were  among 
the  sad  evidences  that  the  people  were  verging  towards 
a  condition  in  which  the  benefits  of  a  righteous  and  free 
government  could  not  be  enjoyed.  They  no  more  belong- 
ed to  the  civil  polity  of  the  Hebrews,  as  Moses  establish- 
ed it,  than  a  w^en  or  a  cancer  belongs,  physiologically,  to 
the  human  system. 

This  view  shows  us  the  striking  contrast  between  the 
democratic  commonwealth  of  Moses,  and  the  modern  na- 
tions called  Christian,  in  the  relative  position  severally 
assigned  by  them,  to  the  military  power.  Let  the  Euro- 
pean nations  and  their  transatlantic  daughters  adopt  the 
Mosaic. polity  in  this  particular,  and  wars,  as  well  as  au- 
tocratic domination,  will  be  comparatively  rare.  Wheth- 
er under  the  perfected  economy  of  the  New  Dispensation 
there  should  be  retained  any  vestige  of  the  military  sys- 
tem, is  a  question  upon  which  we  cannot  now  enter.  It 
is  sufficiently  evident  that  Jesus  did  not  give  more  en- 
couragement to  military  arrangements  than  Moses! 


CHAPTER  XVL 

HERO    WORSHIP NATIONAL    PRIDE. 

Our  view  of  the  institutions  of  Moses  would  be  incom- 
plete, and  our  conception  of  the  spirit  they  breathe  would 
be  inadequate,  should  we  fail  to  notice  distinctly  the  care 
that  was  taken  by  the  inspired  Lawgiver  and  his  com- 
mentators, to  discourage  any  appearance  of  hero  worship 
and  national  pride.  Incidentally  we  have  hinted  at  this, 
as  we  could  not  help  doing,  in  connexion  with  the  admoni- 
tions given  to  the  Hebrews  to  love  and  honor  the  stran- 
ger, and  extend  to  him  the  benefits  of  the  same  equal 
and  just  laws  which  it  was  their  own  privilege  to  enjoy  ; 


220  DEMOCRACY  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

and  likewise  in  connexion  with  what  was  said  of  the  ab- 
sence of  any  supreme  national  executive,  wielding  kingly- 
powers,  or  exercising  discretionary  law-making  functions, 
over  his  brethren. 

Recalling  to  mind  those  features  of  the  Mosaic  institu- 
tions we  have  been  pondering,  let  us  consider  for  a  mo- 
ment the  remarkable  tone  of  the  Mosaic  writings,  and  of 
the  Scriptures  everywhere,  in  respect  to  the  spirit  of  na- 
tional exhortation,  the  pride  of  national  aggrandize- 
ment, national  glory,  national  achievements,  national 
heroes. 

That  these  have  been  the  besetting  sins  of  all  great  and 
prosperous  nations,  and  the  bane,  especially,  of  all  free  gov- 
ernments,noone  can  deny.  The  prophetic  denunciations  are 
emphatic  on  this  point.  The  national  pride  of  the  Egyptians 
and  their  idolatry  of  their  heroes  and  monarchs  were  con- 
nected, as  we  have  already  seen,  with  the  image  worship, 
the  political  iniquities,  the  severe  judgments,  and  the  ul- 
timate degradation  and  ruin  of  that  nation.     Against  their 
pernicious  example,  it  was  especially  important  to  guard 
the  Hebrews,  the  chosen  people,  selected  from  among  all 
the  tribes  of  the  earth  for  the  highest  mission   ever  com- 
mitted to  any  people,  and  distinguished  by  a  series  of  more 
remarkable  and  brilliant  deliverances  .and    exploits    than 
could  be  recounted  by  any   other   nation    under    heaven. 
How  evidently  would  they  be  exposed  to  the  infection  of 
national  pride  !     How  almost   inevitablj^   would   they   be 
tempted  to  idolize,  after  their    deaths,    the   distinguished 
men  by  whose  instrumentality  they  had  been  guided  and 
delivered  !    Refractory  and  rebellious  as  they  were  during 
the  lives  of  their  benefactors,   they    would   be   the   more 
likely  to  seek  amends  by  adulation   after  they  had  passed 
off  the  stage  of  action.     The  new  generation  that  had  en- 
tered the  promised  land  under  Joshua,  with    the   genera- 
tions that  came   after    them,  how  very  naturally  might 
they    become   imbued  with  the  spirit  of  hero    worship 
and  of  the  national  pride  that  it  engenders  !     This  danger 


DEMOCRACY  OF  CHRISTIANITV.  221 

was  guarded  against  by  such  admonitions,  among  others, 
as  the  following  : 

"  Speak  not  thou  in  thine  heart  after  that  the  Lord  thy  God 
hath  cast  them  [i.  c.  the  Canaanites]  out  from  before  thee, 
saying,  For  my  righteousness  the  Lord  hath  brought  me 
in  to  possess  this  land  j  but  for  the  wickedness  of  those 
nations  doth  the  Lord  dri^e  them  out  from  before  thee. 
J^ot  for  thy  righteousness,  or  for  the  uprightness  of  thy 
heart  dost  thou  go  to  possess  their  land,  but  for  the  wick- 
edness of  those  nations  doth  the  Lord  drive  them  out  from 
before  thee,  and  that  He  may  perform  the  word  which  the 
Lord  sware  unto  thy  fathers,  Abraham,  Isaac  and  Jacob. 
Understand,  therefore,  that  the  Lord  thy  God  giv^eth  thee 
not  this  good  land  to  possess  it  for  thy  unrighteousness, 
for  thou  art  a  stiff-necked  people. — Deiit.  ix.  4-G. 

The  remainder  of  the  chapter  is  occupied  with  illustra- 
tions of  their  wicked  and  rebellious  conduct,  during  their 
sojourn  in  the  wilderness,  the  speaker  (Moses)  declaring 
"  Ye  have  been  rebellious  against  the  Lord  from  the  day 
that  T  knew  you."  (v.  24.)  These  are  not  the  words  of 
an  ambitious  aspirant,  expecting  to  be  lauded  as  a  hero._ 
This  is  not  the  way  in  which  nations  are  to  be  educated 
in  the  literature  of  boastful  self-flattery,  hero  worship, 
and  the  divinity  of  kings  ! 

In  the  twenty-sixth  chapter  of  the  same  book  are  direc- 
tions for  the  solemn  and  public  offering  of  the  first  fruits 
of  the  land  of  promise,  after  they  should  have  entered 
into  possession  of  it.  The  first  fruits  w^ere  to  be  placed 
in  baskets  and  carried  to  the  place  of  the  tabernacle,  to 
be  offered  by  the  priest. 

''  And  the  priest  shall  take  the  basket  out  of  thine  hand, 
and  set  it  down  before  the  altar  of  the  Lord  thy  God,  and 
thou  shalt  speak  and  say  before  the  Lord  thy  God — 
A  Syrian  ready  to  perish  was  my  father,  and  he  went 
down  into  Egypt  and  sojourned  there  with  a  few,  and 
became  there  a  nation,  great,  mighty,  and  populous  ;  and 
the  Egyptians  evil  intreated  us,  and  afflicted  us,  and  laid 
on  us  hard  bondage  ;  and  when  Ave  cried  unto  the  Lord 
God  of  our  fathers,  the  Lord  heard  our  voice  and  beheld 
our  affliction,  and  our  labor,  and  our  oppression.  And 
the  Lord  brought   us   forth  out  of  Egypt  with   a  mighty 


222  DEMOCRACY    OF  CHRISTIANITY. 

hand  and  with  an  outstretched  arm,  and  with  great  terri- 
bleness,  and  with  signs,  and  with  wonders.  And  He  hath 
brought  us  into  this  place  and  hath  given  us  this  land, 
even  a  land  that  floweth  with  milkand  honey.  And  now 
behold,  I  have  brought  the  first  fruits  of  the  land,  which, 
thoUj  O  Lord,  hast  given  me." — v.  4-10. 

In  all  this  formula  for  a  national  thanksgiving,  a  cele- 
bration of  their  national  independence  and  freedom,  not  a 
word  is  said  of  the  ^'  bravery  of  our  gallant  troops,"  not 
a  word  of  the  sublime  heroism  and  princely  dignity  of 
Moses,  not  a  word  of  the  resolute  intrepidity  of  Caleb,  not 
a  word  of  the  consummate  generalship  and  manly  daring 
of  Joshua,  or  of  the  garlands  that  decked  the  brow  of  the 
conqueror,  the  father  of  his  country.  Not  a  word  in  this 
direction,  nor  of  the  glory  of  our  sainted  ancestry,  but — 
"  A  Syrian,  ready  to  perish  was  my  father  !"  And  the 
glory  of  deliverance  and  victory  is  all  ascribed  to  Jehovah. 
Nothing  like  hero  worship,  assuredly,  can  be  discovered 
in  all  this,  but  the  most  emphatic  and  eloquent  reproof  of 
the  spirit  that  could  be  occupied  or  gratified  with  it. 

The  piety  of  this  humble  ascription  escapes  not  the  no- 
tice of  our  commentators,  and  it  ought  not.  But  who  has 
thought  to  remark  that  this  same  edifying  expression  and 
exemplification  of  piety  is  not  a  less  emphatic  expression 
and  signal  exemplification  of  the  spirit  of  brotherly  equal- 
ity and  democracy,  that  bows  not  down  before  earthly 
heroes,  that  makes  not  demi-gods  of  public  benefactors, 
thus  subverting  the  liberties  of  a  people  in  the  very  act  of 
celebrating  the  achievement  of  them,  and  building  up  the 
claim  to  a  new  autocracy  upon  the  merit  of  having  as- 
sisted in  the   subversion  of  an  older   and  a  decrepid  one. 

God  took  care  that  no  idolatrous  and  anti-democratic 
pageant  should  be  enacted  at  the  funeral  of  Moses,  that 
no  sculptured  marble,  after  the  manner  of  surrounding 
image  worshippers  should  be  erected  at  his  tomb,  that  no 
meritorious  pilgrimages  should  be  made  to  the  resting 
place  of  his  ashes,  no  relics  be  manufactured  out  of  his 
bones  or  of  the  inanimate  objects  that  were  near  to  him, 


DEMOCRACY  OF  CHRISTIANITY.  223 

no  apostrophes  or  incantations  chanted  over  his  dust,  after 
his  decease.  Alone  on  the  summit  of  Pisgah  he  breathed 
his  last.  The  Lord  buried  him,  and  "no  man  knoweth  of 
his  sepulchre  unto  this  day." — Deut.  xxxiv.  6. 

Who  can  fail  to  perceive  the  congruity  of  this  providen- 
tial arrangement  with  the  divine  admonitions  communica- 
ted to  the  people  by  Moses,  while  living,  such  as  those 
already  recited,  and  such,  moreover,  as  the  following  : 

"  Beware  that  thou  forget  not  the  Lord  thy  God,  in  not 
keeping  His  commandments,  and  His  judgments,  and  His 
statutes  which  [  command  thee  this  d^y.  Lest  when 
thou  hast  eaten  and  art  full,  and  hast  built  goodly  houses 
and  dwelt  therein,  and  when  thy  herds  and  thy  flocks 
multiply,  and  all  that  thou  hast  is  multiplied,  then  thine 
heart  be  lifted  up,  and  thou  forget  the  Lord  thy  God  which 
brought  thee  forth  out  of  the  land  of  Egypt,  from  the 
house  of  bondage  ;  who  led  thee  through  that  great  and 
terrible  wilderness,  wherein  were  fiery  serpents,  and 
scorpions  and  drought,  where  there  was  no  water,  who 
brought  thee  forth  water  out  of  the  rock  of  flint,  who  fed 
thee  in  the  wilderness  with  manna, "*  which  thy  fathers 
knew  not,  that  He  might  humble  thee,  and  that  He  might 
prove  thee,  to  do  thee  .good  at  thy  latter  end.  And  thou 
say  in  thine  hearty  my  power ^  and  the  might  of  my  hand  hath 
gotten  me  this  wealth.  But  thou  shalt  remember  the  Lord 
thy  God,  for  He  it  is  that  giveth  thee  power  to  get 
wealth,  that  He  might  establisli  His  covenant  which  He 
sware  unto  thy  fathers,  as  it  is  this  day." — Deut.  viii.  20. 

What  a  contrast  and  what  a  reproof  to  the  inflated  and 
unfounded  encomiums  we  often  hear  of  the  consummate 
sagacity  and  profound  statesmanship  of  this,  or  that,  or 
the  other  popular  political  economist,  prince,  king,  president, 
minister,  senate,  or  legislative  body,  under  whose  admin- 
istration or  guidance  a  vast  influx  of  wealth  is  said  to 
have  rolled  in  upon  the  nation,  just  as  though  their  arti- 
ficial legislations  and  economical  quackeries  had  produced 
a  single  blade  of  grass  or  kernel  of  grain  !  And  when  the 
national  prosperity  has  come,  very  manifestl}-,  not  in  con- 
sequence of  tlieir  plans  and  doings,  but  in  spite  of  them  ! 
Temptations  to  such  folly  had   been   removed   from   the 


224  DEMOCRACY    OF    CHRISTIANITY. 

Hebrews,  in  some  good  measure,  during  the  continuance 
of  their  commonwealth,  by  securing  the  total  absence  of 
that  class  of  political  functionaries  whose  vocation  may- 
be regarded  as  in  rivalship  with  Divine  Providence,  and 
and  to  whom  our  modern  communities  look  up  more  con- 
fidingly and  imploringly  for  a  due  adjustment  of  banks 
and  tariffs  than  they  do  to  Him  who  controls  the  elements 
of  nature,  for  the  needed  supplies  of  sunshine  and  rain! 
The  Hebrews,  however  we  may  estimate  their  rank  in  the 
scale  of  intellectual  advancement,  were  not  to  be  befooled 
by  such  artsof  jugglery  as  these.  .  They  had  witnessed  the 
discomfiture  of  the  magicians  of  Egypt,  and  were  not  at  this 
period  initiated  into  the  philosophy  of  the  star-gazers,  the 
astrologers,  and  monthly  prognosticators  of  Babylon  j  and 
yet  they  needed  to  be  cautioned,  beforehand,  against  the 
self-flattery  that  almost  uniformly  accompanies  the  in- 
crease of  wealth,  begetting  at  once  the  spirit  of  impiety 
and  of  aristocratic  pride. 

And  what  was  the  lesson  conveyed  by  the  compassing 
of  the  city  of  Jericho  seven  days,  and  the  prostration  of 
its  walls  at  the  sound  of  the  trumpets  of  ram's  horns  and 
the  shouts  of  the  people  ?  What  was  the  moral  of  the  re- 
duction of  the  army  of  Gideon  from  thirty  two  thousand 
to  three. hundred,  and  of  the  deliverance  achieved  through 
these,  at  the  signal  of  the  breaking  of  the  pitchers  1 

The  pride  of  national  prowess — the  glory  of  heroic 
achievement — the  consequent  idolatry  of  heroes,  forget- 
fulness  of  God,  and  reverence  of  earthly  kings — all  these 
were  to  be  cast  into  shade  that  the  loftiness  of  man  might 
be  abased,  and  the  Lord. alone  exalted  and  worshipped. 

And  let  it  not  escape  attention  that  the  Scriptures 
not  only  forbid  the  adulation  of  such /a/se  heroes  as  man- 
kind commonly  idolize,  but  that  they  also  and  especially 
discountenance  an  undue  veneration  and  idolatry  of  the 
most  noble,  the  most  heroic,  the  most  magnanimous  of 
those  mere  men  whose  good  deeds  and  valuable  services 
they  record.     They  are  never  exalted  into  seraphs  or  demi- 


DEMOCRACY    OF   CilRigTIAINiTY.  225 

gods.  They  are  never  panegyrized  in  the  style  of  partial- 
ity and  exaggeration.  Their  faults  are  never  concealed. 
They  are  made  to  appear  what  they  were,  "  men  of  like  pas- 
sions with  ourselves."  Their  virtues  are  recorded  and  so 
are  their  transgressions.  And  all  this  is  evidently  design- 
ed to  prevent  us  from  being  misled  into  an  improper  rev- 
erence of  them.  The  record  takes  care  to  inform  us  that 
Noah  who  out-rode  the  deluge  of  waters  was  once  over- 
come with  wine — that  Job,  the  most  patient  of  men,  cursed 
the  day  of  his  birth — that  Abraham,  the  lather  of  the 
faithful,  was  sometimes  betrayed  into  distrust  and  prevar- 
ication— that  Lot,  the  righteous  refugee  of  Sodom,  was 
not  wholly  untainted  with  its  vices — that  Jacob,  who,  as 
a  prince,  had  power  with  God  and  prevailed,  on  one  occa- 
sion deceived,  and  was  disgraced  and  exiled — that  "Aaron, 
the  saint  of  the  Lord  "  sinned  in  making  a  golden  calf — 
that  MosQs,  the  meekest  of  men,  spake  unadvisedly  with 
his  lips,  and  was  excluded  from  the  promised  land — that 
David,  the  man  after  God's  own  heart,  was  guilty  in  the 
matter  of  Uriah — that  Solomon,  the  wisest  of  men,  stoop- 
ed to  folly,  and  outlandish  women  caused  him  to  sin — that 
the  good  Jehosaphat  erred  in  joining  affinity  with  the 
the  wicked  Ahab — that  the  circumspect  Josiah  lost  his 
life  by  a  rash  and  ill-advised  adventure — that  another  He- 
brew king  served  the  Lord,  but  not  with  a  perfect  heart 
— -ithat  another  reformed  a  number  of  abuses,  but  did  not 
reform  them  all.  Even  Elijah  who  was  carried  up  in  a 
chariot  of  fire  to  heaven,  without  tasting  of  death — Elijah 
immediately  after  his  triumphant  victory  over  the  proph- 
ets of  Baal,  and  over  Ahab  and  Jezebel — is  presented  to  us 
in  attitude  of  despondency,  distrust,  and  almost  despara- 
tion — desiring  to  die.  The  New  Testament  writers 
pursae  the  same  plan,  in  recording  the  ambitious  pride  of 
the  sons  of  Zebidee,  the  fall  of  Peter,  the  distrust  of  Tho- 
mas, the  dissention  between  Paul  and  Barnabas,  the  dis- 
simulation of  Peter. 

Whatever  else  may  bo  taught  or  not  taught  by  this. re- 


226  DEMOCRACY  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

markable  characteristic  of  the  inspired  writers,  one  thing 
is  sufficiently  apparent,  the  philosophy  of  hero  worship, 
either  in  its  antique  or  more  modern  phase,  is  not  taught  nor 
promoted  by  it  5  and  while  they  furnish  us  with  no  excuse  for 
our  own  follies  and  derelictions,  but  should  incite  us  to 
guard  against  them  with  incessant  vigilance,  they  warn 
us,  at  the  same  time,  against  bowing  down  to  our  fellow- 
men,  and  committing  ourselves  implicitly  to  the  guidance 
of  sinful  worms  of  the  dust  like  ourselves,  instead  of  con- 
fiding in  God — the  error  of  all  who  yield  their  assent  to 
to  autocratic  arrangements  or  aristocrotic  claims.  Such 
facts  give  emphasis  to  the  divine  admonitions  against 
hero  worship  with  which  the  Scriptures  abound. 

"  Cease  ye  from  man  whose  breath  is  in  his  nostrils, 
for  wherein  is  he  to  be  accounted  of  V— /^a.  ii.  22. 

"  Cursed  be  the  man  that  trusteth  in  man,  and  maketh 
flesh  his  arm,  and  whose  heart  departeth  from  the  Lord." 
— Jer.  xvii.  5. 

«<  Put  not  your  trust  in  princes,  nor  in  the  son  of  Man, 
in  whom  there  is  no  help.  His  breath  goeth  forth,  he  re- 
turneth  to  his  earth,  in  that  very  day  his  thoughts  perish. 
Happy  is  he  that  hath  the  God  of  Jacob  for  his  help  and 
whose  hope  is  in  the  Lord  his  God." — Ps.  cxlvi.  2-5. 

Other  philosophies  may  commend  hero  worship  and 
saint  worship  as  auxiliary  to  the  worship  of  Jehovah,  and 
as  harmonizing  with  it,  on  the  ground  that  the  same  at- 
tributes of  God  that  demand  adoration — such  as  strength, 
wisdom,  and  justice — are  found,  though  in  an  inferior  de- 
gree, in  good  and  great  men.  The  philosophy  of  the  Bible, 
without  overlooking  the  goodness  and  wisdom  of  good 
men,  or  teaching  us  to  overlook  them,  so  strongly  con- 
trasts all  finite  goodness — especially  all  human  goodness 
— with  the  Infinite  Goodness,  and  Strength,  and  Wisdom, 
as  to  annihilate  the  former  in  the  comparison.  He  char- 
geth  His  angels  with  folly  ;  the  heavens  are  not  clean  in 
His  sight.  And  when  the  idea  of  worship  presents  itself, 
the  heavenly  messenger  replies  promptly,  "See  thou  do  it 
not,  for  1  am  thy  fellow-servant — worship  God."     "  Thou 


DEMOCRACY     OF    CHRISTIANITY.  227 

shalt  worship  the  Lord  thy  God,  and  Him  only  shalt  thou 
serve."    "  There  is  none  good  but  One,  that  is  God." 

In  rising  to  the  worship  of  Jehovah  we  so  distance  the 
earth  that  its  mountains  sink  into  vallies,  and  all  its  in- 
habitants stand  on  a  dead  level.  No  idea  adverse  to  dem- 
ocratic equality  can  have  place,  then.  "  Power  belongeth 
imto  God."  On  this  basis  rested  the  democracy  of  the 
Mosaic  commonwealth — this  was  the  key-note  of  its  har- 
monies. 

The  Hebrew  government  has  been  called  a  Theocracy. 
So  it  was  ;  and  for  that  very  reason  it  was  necessarily  a 
democracy  in  the  human  administration  of  it — and  the 
Hebrews  revolted  from  their  theocracy  when  they  desired  a 
king — because  the  kingly  majesty  of  Jehovah  displaces  all 
other  kings,  leaving  all  His  subjects  as  seen  from  the  foot  of 
His  throne — the  only  true  point  of  observation — on  that 
common  level  on  which  no  mere  man  may  wield  the  scep- 
tre over  his  fellows.  One  son  of  Adam,  one  only,  might 
lawfully  do  this,  because  "  in  the  beginning  he  was  with 
God,  and  was  God."  Of  him  it  is  written,  "Let  all  the 
angels  of  God  worship  Him." 

It  may  be  proper  to  add,  in  illustration,  that  the  He- 
brews, as  a  matter  of  fact,  retained  the  spirit  of  their  in- 
stitutions just  in  proportion  as  they  were  preserved  from 
hero  worship  and  national  pride  :  and  that  their  idolatry 
of  Moses,  of  the  rituals,  of  the  temple,  of  the  temple  worship, 
together  with  their  pride  of  national  dignity,  and  of  their 
affinity  to  Abraham,  to  Isaac  and  Jacob,  kept  equal  pace  with 
their  increasing  depravity,  as  they  ripened  for  destruc- 
tion, building  the  tombs  of  the  prophets  and  garnishing 
the  sepulchres  of  the  righteous,  yet  crucifying  the  Lord 
of  glory.  (See  Jer,  vii.  :  Isa.  i.  and  Iviii :  Matt,  xxiii. : 
John  viii.  &c.) 

Should  any  portion  of  the  Bible  be  cited  as  celebrating 
with  glowing  eloquence,  the  mighty  deeds  of  its  great 
men,  that  portion  would  undoubtedly  be  the  eleventh 
chapter  of  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews.     But  the  scope  of 


^28  DEMOCRACY  OF  OHRISTIANITY. 

the  rhetoric  will  be  found  to  magnify  the  power,  not  of 
man  but  of  God,  and  of  true  faith  in  Him;  a  faith  to  be 
regarded,  not  as  the  exclusive  prerogative  of  the  gifted 
few,  but  the  equal  privilege  of  the  common  brotherhood 
of  the  saints,  for  whom  still  better  things  were  reserved, 
(v.  40.) 


CHAPTER  XVIL 

GENERAL  CHARACTER  AND  NATURAL  TENDENCIES    OF    THE    MO- 
SAIC LAWS  AND  INSTITUTIONS. 

If  the  reader  has  accompanied  us  in  our  examination  of 
the  institutions  and  laws  of  the  Mosaic  commonwealth,  he 
may,  perhaps,  be  prepared  to  express  an  opinion  in  respect 
to  their  general  character  and  tendencies;  and  to  say 
whether  the  description  given  of  them  by  Moses  towards 
the  close  of  his  career,  presents  a  true  picture  of  them. 

"Behold,  I  have  taught  you  statutes  and  judgments 
even  as  the  Lord  my  God  commanded  me,  that  ye  should 
do  so,  in  the  land  whither  ye  go  to  possess  it.  Keep 
therefore  and  do  them,  for  this  is  your  wisdom  and  your 
understanding,  in  the  sight  of  the  nations  which  shall 
hear  all  these  statutes  and  say.  Surely  this  great  nation 
is  a  wise  and  understanding  people  ;  for  what  nation  is 
there  so  great,  who  hath  God  so  nigh  unto  them,  as  the 
Lord  our  God  is  in  all  things  that  we  call  upon  Him  for  1 
And  what  nation  is  there  so  great,  that  hath  statutes  and 
judgments  so  righteous  as  all  this  law  which  1  set  before 
you  this  day  %  Only  take  heed  to  thyself  and  keep  thy 
soul  diligently,  lest  thou  forget  the  things  that  thine  eyes 
hath  seen,  and  lest  they  depart  from  thy  heart  all  the  days 
of  thy  life,  but  teach  them  thy  sons  and  thy  sons'  sons." 
— Deut.  iv.  5-9. 

Moses  did  not  67iact  but  only  taught  these  statutes. 
This  he  did  "  as  the  Lord  commanded  "  him,   not   as  he 


DEJIOCRACY  OF  CHRISTIANITY.  229 

himself  judged  expedient.  He  made  no  boast  of  states- 
manship or  of  a  knowledge  of  jurisprudence,  in  commen- 
ding these  laws  ;  nor  did  he  flatter  the  Hebrews,  or  en- 
courage them  in  national  pride.  They  might  expect  the 
reputation  of  wisdom,  in  proportion  as  they  obeyed  and 
administered  faithfully  these  statutes.  Moses  expected  the 
surrounding  nations  would  hear  of  these  statutes  and  com- 
mend their  wisdom.  Such,  undoubtedly,  was  the  fact, 
and  they  have  been  a  watch-light  amid  surrounding  dark- 
ness, ever  since.  Directly  or  indirectly,  all  free  institu- 
tions, from  that  day  to  this,  have  been  derived  from 
them. 

The  time  would  fail  to  trace  minutely  the  natural  and 
evident  tendencies  of  the  institutions  of  Moses.  At  pres- 
ent we  shall  only  glance  at  a  few  particular  bearings  and 
manifestations  of  them  sufficiently  significant,  however, 
and  comprehensive  in  their  connexions,  to  justify  the  se- 
lection. 

The  student  of  ancient  history  will  comprehend  us, 
when  we  advert  to  the  general  fact,  in  the  ancient  nations, 
of  the  degradation  of  the  great  masses  of  community,  in- 
cluding, especially,  the  people  of  the  rural  districts,  the 
cultivators  of  the  soil,  if  such  they  may  be  called. 

The  simplicity  of  the  patriarchal  ages  was  transent. 
General  virtue  and  intelligence,  for  a  number  of  centu- 
ries, must  have  been  on  the  decline.  From  the  era  of 
Abraham  to  that  of  Joshua,  a  sad  change  had  passed  over 
the  inhabitants  of  Canaan.  The  land  was  not  given  to 
the  Hebrews  for  a  possession  until  the  iniquity  of  those 
nations  was  full. 

^-  In  other  nations,  similar  changes  must  have  been  going 
on.  The  knowledge  of  the  true  God,  transmitted  from 
Noah,  was  not  lost  in  a  day.  Corresponding  habits  of 
comparative  morality,  of  decorum,  of  good  manners,  of 
good  taste,  of  good  sense,  must  also  have  remained,  and 
are  manifest  in  the  sacred  narratives.  If  not  polished,  the 
patriarchs  were  not  savage.     But  in  rural  life,  favorable 

11 


230  DEMOCRACY  OF  CHRISTIANlXr. 

as  it  is  to  virtue,  in  many  respects,  and  with  proper  cul- 
ture, there  is,  in  the  absence  of  letters,  and  of  settled  in- 
stitutions, a  constant  and  ahuost  resistless  tendency  to 
sink  down  into  brutishness  and  barbarism.  We  witness 
this  in  our  sparse  settlements,  on  the  borders  of  civiliza- 
tion, in  America,  even  with  those  who  are  not  wholly  un- 
acquainted with  letters,  and  who  were  born  and  educated 
in  civilized  life.  No  small  effort  is  requisite  to  prevent 
many  civilized  communities  from  going  back  again,  to  the 
savage  state.  Every  thing,  at  the  period  now  alluded  to, 
in  the  absence  of  printing,  if  not  of  letters,  tended  in  that 
direction,  so  far  as  rural  or  country  life  was  concerned. 

Corrupt  and  corrupting   as  populous   cities   commonly 
are   and  doubly  so  in  the  darkness  of  unbroken  heathen- 
ism, there  was  a  long  period,  nevertheless,  when  the  civ- 
ilization of  the   world,  such  as   it  was,  took  up  its  abode 
chiefly  in  cities,  and  the  country  was  left  to  its  fate.     Ar- 
chitecture, commerce,  manufactures,  the  arts  attracted  men 
into  the  cities.  Here  too,  the  knowledge  of  letters  was  more 
commonly  introduced,  learning  was  fostered,  literature  was 
patronized.     Wealth,  numbers,  luxury,  splendor,  power,  as 
well  as  intelligence  distinguished  the  cities.     Pride  soon 
tauffht  the  inhabitants  of  great  cities   to  regard  all  the 
rest  of  the  world  with  disdain.      The  ancient  kings  were 
kino-s  of  cities.     Cities  extended  their  conquests  far  and 
near.     The  names  of  cities  were  names  of  nations.     Nine- 
veh, Babylon,  Tyre,  Rome,  were  seats  of  political  power. 
Then  came  wars  between  cities — the  conquest  of  cities  by 
cities — confederation  of  cities — empires  of  cities. 

This  feature  of  ihe  ancient  civilization  is  noticed  by 
Guizot,  who  remarks  that  "the  history  of  the  conquest 
of  the  world  by  Rome  is  the  history  of  the  conquest  and 
foundation  of  a  vast  number  of  cities."  (Hist.  Civiliza- 
tion, p.  42.)  Accordingly,  he  observes,  the  Roman  gov- 
ernment was  merely  municipal — the  government  of  a  city; 
their  institutions  were  municipal  institutions — this  was 
their  distinctive  character,     (p.  41) 


Oemockacy  of  ciiinsTiANiTr.  231 

The  bearing  of  all  this  upon  rural  life,  may  be  faintly 
Jmanrined.  A  paragraph  from  the  writer  just  mentioned, 
may  assist  our  conceptions, 

"  At  this  time  there  were  no  country  places,  no  villa- 
ges, at  least  the  country  was  nothing  like  what  it  is  in 
the  present  day.  li  was  cultivated,  no  doubt,  but  it  was 
not  peopled.  The  proprietors  of  lands  and  of  coantry  es- 
tates dwelt  in  cities,  they  left  these  occasionally  to  visit 
their  rural  property,  where  they  usually  kept  a  certain 
number  of  slaves;  but  that  which  we  now  call  the  coun- 
try, that  scattered  population,  sometimes  in  lone  houses 
sometimes  in  hamletsand  villages,  and  which  everywhere 
dots  ouf  land  with  agricultural  dwellings,  was  altoo-ether 
unknown  in  ancient  Italy."      (p.  li.)  ° 

There  is  some  difficulty  in  comprehending  fully  even 
this  graphic  description.  The  cu/iivoJors^  it  seems,  were  not 
regarded  as  people.  Their  condition  was  too  low  for  that 
term.  U  not  literally  slaves,  chattels  personal,  they  were 
in  a  condition  of  vassalage.  The  shepherds  of  the  patri- 
archal  ages,  in  the  east,  appear  to  have  occupied  the  coun- 
try almost  in  common.  But  now,  at  least  in  Italy,  the 
soil  was  claimed  by  residents  in  cities.  Like  the  Irish 
tenantry,  the  people  inhabited  the  land  of  non-residents. 
The  slave  states  of  America  present,  in  some  respects  a 
similar  picture,  only  the  planters  are  scattered  over  the 
country,  not  collected  together  in  cities.  Their  slaves 
require  a  more  vigilant  attention,  a  more  stringent  con- 
trol, than  the  ancient  peasantry. 

One  feature  of  the  picture  is  sufficiently  prominent.  A 
vast  moral  desolation,  an  intellectual  and  spiritual  as  well 
as  political  rum,  presents  itself,  as  afTecting  as  it  is  ap- 
palling. Agricultural  pursuits  in  some  form,  or  at  least 
rural  life,  including  the  pastoral  and  the  chase,  seem  des- 
tined, of  necessity,  to  occupy  the  great  bulk  of  mankind, 
and  no  arrangements  that  could  congregate  a  dispropor- 
tion of  the  race  in  cities,  could  fail  to  diminish  unfavora- 
bly the  numbers  of  the  producing  classes.  Some  must 
be  overtasked,  others  over-fed,  and  all  would  be  injured. 


232  BEMOCRACY  OF  CHRISTIAjriTY. 

The  artificial  would  supplant  the  natural.  Labor  in  gen- 
eral and  especially  agricultural  labor,  which  ought  to  be 
signally  honorable  and  ennobling,  would  become  servile 
and  degrading.  Industry,  the  hand-maid  of  virtue  and 
natural  ally  of  intelligence,  would  degenerate  into  drudge- 
ry, and  become  the  companion  of  ignorance  and  brutality. 
In  the  cities,  effeminacy,  luxury,  idleness,  pride,  licen- 
tiousness, oppression,  the  sins  of  JSodom,  would  be  likely 
to  reign  uncontrolled  and  unchecked.  No  moral  waste, 
not  even  that  of  savage  life,  or  of  rural  enslavement  could 
be  more  inveterate  than  that  of  wealthy  and  populous  cities, 
given  up  to  the  love  of  money,  the  love  of  power,  the  love  of 
display,  the  love  of  sensual  indulgences.  The  refinement 
and  elegance  of  such  cities,  with  all  the  science,  the  lite- 
rature and  the  fine  arts  that  could  adorn  them,  would  not 
compensate  for  the  absence  of  virtue,  of  true  religion,  of 
rational  freedom.  Within  the  walls  of  such  cities  there 
must  be  a  vast  amount  of  squallid  poverty,  pining  want, 
dense  ignorance  and  brutal  vice,  more  hopeless,  if  possi- 
ble, and  more  disgusting,  than  the  barbarism  of  the  coun- 
try Even  in  our  own  times,  we  know  enough  of  the  ten- 
dencies of  populous  cities,  boasting  the  light  of  the  gos- 
pel, to  perceive  that  this  picture  of  the  ancient  heathen 
cities  is  not  incredible. 

There  is  reason  to  think  that  the  picture  of  Italy  and 
of  the  rest  of  Europe  in  the  times  of  the  Roman  empire, 
resembled  that  of  the  ancient  nations  in  general,  in  the 
times  of  Moses.  The  population  of  Asia,  as  intimated  by 
Guizot,  may  have  retained  the  patriarchal  character  for  a 
longerperiod  than  the  more  western  nations.  The  tide  of 
western  emigration  from  the  centre  of  patriarchal  civiliza- 
tion may  have  exposed  the  emigrants  sooner  to  the  influ- 
ences tending  to  barbarism.  The  same  causes,  however, 
were  at  work,  and  steadily  though  gradually  producing 
their  appropriate  effects.  Egypt,  as  we  have  already 
seen,  was  completely  under  the  withering  power  of  a  land 
monopoly  in  its  worst  form,  the  absolute  monarch  being 


i 


DEMOCRACY  OF    CHRISTIANITY.  233 

the  owner  ot  the  soil,  and  the  cultivators  reduced  to  a 
state  of  vassalage.  The  building  of  Pithom  and  Kaannses 
as  treasure  cities,  by  the  over-tasked  and  servile  Hebrews, 
during  their  bondage,  is  an  incident  indicative  of  the  same 
preponderance  of  great  cities^  in  the  Egyptian  state  of  so- 
ciety, that  afterwards  characterized  Italy  and  all  the 
Western  Roman  Empire,  including  Gaul  and  Spain. 

This  condition  of  things,  let  it  be  noted,  presented  as 
inseparable  an  obstacle  to  the  introduction  ot  democratic 
institutions,  deserving  the  name,  (and  affording  equal  se- 
curity and  protection  for  all  classes  of  the  people,  inclu- 
ding the  poorest,  the  most  ignorant,  the  most  servile,)  as 
it  did  to  the  introduction  of  true  religion,  and  of  that  real 
refinement,  civilization,  and  generally  diffused  intelli- 
gence, virtue,  independency,  and  comfort  that  naturally 
come  in  its  train. 

Such  being  the  condition  of  the  ancient  nations  in  gen- 
eral, and  such  being  the  tendencies  to  which  the  most  fa- 
vored portions  of  the  world,  even  the  seats  of  the  ancient 
patriarchal  usages  were  exposed,  the  problem  was,  how 
to  counteract  these  tendencies,  how  to  grapple  with  all 
this  dense  mass  of  sensuality  and  moral  putrefaction,  how 
to  cultivate,  with  any  prospects  of  success,  these  vast, 
interminable,  and  inveterate  moral  wastes  1  How  should 
the  dignity  of  manual  labor,  the  healthful  influences  of 
virtuous  industrj  ,  of  honorable  and  intelligent  husbandry 
be  restored  1  How  were  city  and  country  to  be  brought 
again  into  their  natural  and  symmetrical  proportions  1 
How  without  this,  could  autocratic  domination  be  checkedl 
How  could  the  righteous  dominion  of  Jehovah  be  restored! 
How  could  true  religion  and  morality  be  taught,  exem- 
plified, and  propagated  1  How  could  the  equality  of  a 
common  brotherhood  be  exhibited  or  honored  ?  How 
could  inalienable  human  rights  be  brought  to  view — how 
secured  \  How  could  the  spirit  of  free  institutions  be 
breathed  into  such  nations  1  And  how  should  they  be 
qualified  to  understand  and  administer  them  ? 


234  DEMOCRACY    OF    ClIRISTTANITY. 

Howl  The  sacred  Scriptures,  from  the  books  of  Ex- 
odus to  the  book  of  the  Judges,  inform  us  how  it  was 
done.  More  than  mere  human  wisdom  was  employed  in 
devising  the  plan — more  than  mere  human  power  was  re- 
quisite for  the  undertaking.  It  was  not  in  Moses  or  in 
AaroHy  it  was  not  in  Joshua  or  in  Caleb.  He  who  made 
man — who  gave  law  to  him — who  had  determined  to  re- 
store him  from  his  degradation — He  who  called  Abra- 
ham— He  who  covenanted  with  his  Messiah  that  the  hea- 
then should  be  his  inheritance  and  the  uttermost  parts  of 
the  earth  his  possession — He  who  saw  the  end  from  the 
beginning — He  in  whose  hand  are  the  hearts  of  kings — He 
who  worketh  all  things  after  the  counsel  of  His  own  will 
— He  it  was  that  devised  and  performed  the  greit  work. 
Some  portion  of  the  earth — some  central  conspicuous 
spot,  close  bordering  on  the  Asiatic,  the  African,  the  Eu- 
ropean branches  of  the  human  family  must  be  selected  for 
the  new,  the  grand  experiment.  Some  territory,  too  long- 
cumbered  with  vice  and  degradation  must  be  emptied  of 
its  unworthy  and  miserable  inhabitants,  to  whom  a  longer 
forbearance  would  be  no  real  benefit  but  rather  a  curse  in 
the  end — some  over-tasked  and  burthened  victims  of  these 
autocratic  oppressions,  must  be  brought  up  out  of  their 
bondage,  amid  scenes  which  should  cause  neighboring 
and  distant  despots  to  tren:tble,  and  rouse  the  most  besot- 
ted of  their  sycophants,  the  most  degraded  of  their  vassals 
to  look  on,  and  learn.  Egypt  must  be  spoiled,  Pharaoh 
and  his  hosts  overthrown,  Israel  redeemed,  the  Canaan- 
ites  conquered,  the  chosen  people  planted  in  their  stead. 
And  for  what]  That  a  new  lesson  might  be  taught 
to  them,  and  through  them  to  the  surrounding  nations— 
to.all  mankind  ! 

And  what  was  the  process  of  teaching  ?  An  equal  di- 
vision of  the  soil  among  the  people  ;  and  secured  to  then-> 
from  the  grasp  of  creditors  by  jubilee  laws.  Equality  of 
possession  and  the  general  pursuit  of  agriculture  in  this 
and  in   other  ways   encouraged.     Overgrown  cities,  dis- 


DEMOCRACY  OF  CnRISTIANiry. 


•235 


proportionate  commerce,  luxury  and  accumulated  capital, 
thus  and  in  other  ways  discouraged,  (perhaps  even  by 
laws  against  usury  or  increase.)  Next,  by  a  democratic 
polity,  a  popular  judiciary,  the  reign  of  common  law,  the 
absence  of  legislative  prerogative  and  kingly  power,  the 
clothingof  the  people,  at  once,  and  e?i  masse,  (laborers 
and  agriculturists  as  they  mostly  were)  with  all  the  po- 
liticaf  responsibilities  of  the  nation  ;  above  all,  and 
through  all  this,  the  restored  knowledge  of  God  and  His 
law,  supplanting  all  autocratic  domination  and  power. 

Whoever  contemplates,  first,  the  condition  and  struc- 
ture of  ancient  heathen  society,  its  overgrown  and  cor- 
rupt cities,  its  degraded  rural  districts,  and  who  next 
turns  a  scrutinizing  eye  to  the  institutions  of  Moses,  will 
see  at  a  glance,  the  divine  slfill  with  which  the  remedy 
was  adapted  to  the  disease— the  panacea  to  the  sore. 
Wherever  the  one  could  be  successfully  applied,  the  other 
would  be  removed,  of  course. 

No  man  acquainted  with  human  nature,    the  workings 
of  civil   institutions,   the   connexion   between  moral  and 
political  cause  and  efiect,   can   fail  to  be  struck   with  the 
powerful  tendency  of  the   Mosaic   economy   to  break  up 
that  particular  feature  of  ancient  heathen  society  that  has 
been  described.     The   lesson   to   the  Hebrews,    through 
them  to  the  surrounding  nations,  and  ultimately  to  all  the 
kindreds  of  the   earth    who   shall  be   taught   the  religion 
perfected  by  the  anointed  successor  of  Moses,  (the  seed 
in  whom  all  nations  were  to  be  blessed)  was  the  lesson  of 
the  One  Only  Potentate  over  all   men,   the  equal  brother- 
hood and  equal  rights  of  all  His  subjects,  their  common  par- 
ticipancy  in  the  privileges  and  responsibilities  of  His  king- 
dom, their  equal  right  to  the  soil  as  tenants  under  the  Great 
Father,  the  dignity  and  blessedness  of  productive  manual 
labor,  the  odiousness  of  caste,  the  iniquity  of  all  the  usages 
of  monopoly,  misanthropy,  inequality,  and  oppression. 

If  any  one  doubts  the  tendency  and  efficacy  of  the  religion 
and  the  polity  of  Moses  to  rescue  the  rural  districts,  the 


236  DEMOCRACY  OF  CHRISTIANITY. 

country,  the  agricultural  population — and  through  them 
the  cities — from  the  degraded  position  described  as  per- 
taining to  the  history  of  ancient  heathen  nations,  let  him 
study  the  history  of  Europe,  Asia,  Africa,  and  America, 
from  the  times  of  Moses  to  the  present.  Let  him  point 
out  the  times  and  the  places  where  the  opposite  character- 
istics have  preponderated  or  even  appeared,  and  inquire 
after  the  moral  and  chronological  causes  that  have  opera- 
ted to  produce  them. 

In  which  of  the  ancient  nations,  except  the  Hebrew,  and 
so  far  back  as  the  times  of  the  Judges,  do  we  find  a  civil 
government  administered  by  the  masses  of  the  people,  the 
agriculturalists  o^  the  rural  districts,  the  cultivators  and 
yet  the  lords  of  the  soil  1  Not  till  long  after  this  came 
the  Greek  and  Koman  republics,  as  they  are  called.  The 
pag-es  of  Guizot  may  inform  us  what  sort  of  a  resemblance 
they  bore  to  the  Hebrew  commonwealth  of  agricultural- 
ists— the  opulent  inhabitants  of  the  great  cities  constitu- 
ting the  only  elements  of  civil  power — the  government  be- 
ing only  municipal — the  country  peasants  being  their  serfs, 
cultivating  the  country  but  not  considered  as  hsiving peopled 
it — their  dwellings,  whatever  they  were,  not  striking  the 
eye  as  houses^  not  constituting  hamlets  and  villages,  like 
thosepresented  by  the  Christian  civilization  even  of  modern 
Europe,  where  the  standard,  certainly,  might  be  greatly 
elevated,  and  the  condition  of  the  peasantry  vastly  im- 
proved, especially  their  political  position  ! 

Where,  in  fact,  from  the  times  of  the  Hebrew  common- 
wealth— where,  at  any  period,  out  of  Palestine,  do  we  find 
the  picture  of  a  sovereign  agricultural  peasantry  realized, 
till  we  come  to  the  New  England  Colonies,*  and  the  pre- 


*  Throe  anomalies  nre,  howover.  to  be  i.oticed  in  these  republics— fiist, 
llicir  nominal  'JopeiHlt'iice  on  a  fo!Ti<4ri  >i.'onari.hy  ;  j^eeond,  iheir  estab- 
lii^hmetil  of  an  » ccle  iasiical  polity  by  'he  st:»ie  ;  and  tb»vd,  tlifir  foleniiC 
ofcluitU'l  irilavpyy.  from  all  ihosf  ari;>nialics,  the  ds'uiocracy  ol  JNew  Eng- 
land has  suilirt'd  uamafi^e  ;  but  ll.fy  I  ave  ad  disapi  t?ir*  d,  uiiitss  we  ex- 
cept the  third.  A  lew  slaves  have  boon  set  (ne,  and  lli»>  sysleni  aboii.-heii 
yet  the  connexion  with  slave  holding  states,  and  especially  x\iih  the  slavc« 
ry  of  the  Federal  District,  still  leiuuins. 


DEMOCHAOt  Oy  OHRlSTlANlTV.  237 

sent  non-slaveholding  North  American  States  ?  But  these 
were  patterned  after  the  Hebrew^  and  with  a  minuteness, 
in  New  England,  especially  in  ecclesiastical  matters,  that 
(as  already  observed)  betrayed  them  into  serious  error, 
that  of  attempting  under  the  New  Dispensation  what  was 
peculiar  to  the  Old,  But  this  error,  which  was  tempora- 
ry, did  not  prevent  them  from  realizing,  in  a  good  meas- 
ure, a  re-production  of  the  Hebrew  agricultural  common- 
wealth. Some  periods  in  the  history  of  England,  some 
portions  of  Scotland,  perhaps  of  Germany,  Switzerland, 
and  Holland  have  furnished  a  rural  population  approxi- 
mating in  character  to  the  model  of  the  Hebrew.  In  each 
instance  the  spirit,  essentially,  of  the  same  religion — 
though  varying  in  outward  expression  and  form — that 
shaped  the  Hebrew  polity  and  gave  it  life,  had  been  com- 
municated to  the  mass  of  the  people,  and  with  it  the  histo- 
ry and  the  polity  of  the  ancient  Hebrews  had  become  more 
or  less  familiar  to  them.  x\lore  than  this  might  be  claim- 
ed. The  corresponding  political  privileges,  at  times,  and 
in  some  degree,  have  accompanied  these  qualifications  for 
the  exercise  of  them,  the  prospect  of  obtaining  them  has 
been  yet  more  frequent,  and  could  the  general  condition 
and  character  of  the  people  have  been  made  what  the  He- 
brew code  requires  o(  its  subjects,  the  blessings  of  Hebrew 
liberty,  we  may  believe,  would  have  been  conferred  upon 
them. 

A  further  illustration  is  presented  to  us  in  the  compari- 
son between  Europe  and  Asia,  at  two  far  distant  periods. 
During  the  Roman  republic  and  empire,  the  reign  of  the 
cities  and  the  degradation  of  the  rural  peasantry  were  more 
strikingly  marked,  (as  Guizot  observes)  throughout  the 
European  or  Western  portion  of  the  Roman  dominions 
than  in  the  far  Eastern,  where  at  that  time  the  patriarchal 
manners  and  virtues  were  not  extinct,  and  "  the  population 
not  distributed  the  same  way  as  in  the  western  world" — 
that  is,  in  Italy,  Spain,  and  the  Gauls.  But  suppose  we 
institute  a  comparison  between  the  East   and   the    West 

11* 


23S  D2SI0CRACV  OF  CHRiS'flAKIT?. 

now.    The  European  countries  are  dotted  over  with  bright 
villacres  and  comfortable  and  respectable  dwellings,  not  to 
sav  elecant  mansions,  churches,   castles,   country   seats, 
accommodated  with  roads  intersecting  each  other  in  every 
direction-all  which  Guizot  so  pertinently  notices  as  con^ 
trasting  favorably  with  the  times  of  ancient  Rome.     But 
where  are  the  Eastern  vestiges  oi  patriarchal   simplicity 
now^     What  have  become  of  them!     And   how    do   the 
Asiatic  countries  compare  with  the  European   in   respect 
to  the  intellectual,  moral,  social,  and  civil  condition  of  the 
masses^  Alas !  we  understand  too  well  that  the  term  Asiatic 
has  become  descriptive  of  despotism,  unmitigated,  relent- 
less,    connected    with    corresponding  ignorance,    stupid- 
ity    and    degradation.     Even   continental  Europe,  crush- 
ed,'perverted,  despoiled,  King-ridden,  and  priest-ridden  as 
she  is,  presents  a  peasantry  that  might  almost  be   called 


intellio-eiit  and  free,  compared  with  the  Asiatic 

To  what  cause,  are  we  to  attribute  these  changes  . 
Why  sinks  humanity  to  such  depths  in  the  soil  of  her  an- 
cient freshness  and  beauty  ?  Why  rises  it  in  foreign  and 
ungenial  climes  \  Why,  where  Noah,  and  Job,  and  Elihu, 
and  Melchizedec,  and  Abraham,  and  Jethro  once  flour- 
ished, do  the  masses  of  men  now  fraternize  with  the 
brutes-while  beyond  the  ancient  confines  of  civilization 
the  barbarian  rises  above  the  civilization  of  the  ancients  1 
Privileaes  long  abused  are  sometimes  forfeited-light  ha- 
ted is  withdrawn-liberty  outraged  retires-relig.on  re- 
jected, corrupted,  at  length  disappears-man  becoming 
an  oppressor,  is  himself  degraded  and  enslaved. 

The  star  of  Jacob  that  went  down  upon  the  nations  ot 
East,  arose  upon  the  people  of  the  West.  The  institutions 
of  Moses,  iT^arred  and  perverted,  were  at  length  utterly 
overthrown.  I'he  fires  on  the  Hebrew  altars  ceased  to  burn, 
the  sanctuary  was  trodden  under  foot,  the  temple  destroyed, 
the  once  chosen  people  scattered  to  the  ends  of  the  earth. 
But  the  books  of  Moses  and  the  prophets  went  with  them, 
diffusing  light  wherever  they  went.     Those  who  perse- 


DEMOCRACY  OF  CHRISTIANITY.  239 

cuted  and  despoiled  them  could  not  help  receiving  bene- 
fits from  them.  The  nations  of  Europe  became  acquain- 
ted with  the  institutions  of  Moses,  for  the  Christian  Scrip- 
tures, moreover,-  included  those  of  the  Hebrews.  Not  even 
the  darkness  of  the  middle  ages,  the  double  glooms  of  the 
northern  barbarianism  and  the  superstitions  of  a  corrupt- 
ed Christianity  could  so  shut  out  the  light  of  the  Bible  as 
to  leave  Europe  in  Asiatic  darkness,  deserted  as  Asia  at 
length  was,  by  the  light  of  the  New  Testament  as  well  as 
the  Old,  the  Christian  as  well  as  the  Hebrew  candlestick 
being  removed  from  her,  the  Saracen  having  encamped  in 
Palestine,  and  Mahomet  having  succeeded  to  both  Moses 
and  Jesus. 

Jn  one  word,  the  centuries  that  had  intervened  between 
the  noon-day  splendors  of  ancient  Rome  and  the  rise  of 
modern  Europe  to  the  standard  of  her  present  civiliza- 
tion, had  witnessed  the  gradual  but  almost  absolute  trans- 
fer of  the  lights  of  the  Old  and  New  Testaments  from 
Asia  to  Europe  !  Eclipsed,  bedimmed,  hidden,  monopo- 
lized, proscribed  as  that  light  has  been,  in  a  large  portion 
of  Europe,  especially  the  southern,  it  was  nevertheless 
there,  and  could  not  be  prevented  from  yielding  a  reflex 
light.  Just  in  proportion  as  it  has  shined  the  masses  of 
humanity  have  been  cheered  by  its  beams.  But  Asia  has 
long  satin  still  deeper  glooms  ;  her  teeming  millions 
grope  in  a  darkness  that  may  be  felt,  for  the  light  is  not 
there.  The  institutions  of  Moses  and  the  spirit  that  dic- 
tated them  are  totally  unknown  to  the  Asiatics,  (with  sol- 
itary exceptions)  and  hence  there  is  no  enlightened  peas- 
antry, no  agricultural  commonwealth,  nor  the  semblance 
of  a  population  that  could  now  without  a  renovation  be 
formed  into  a  Mosaic  democracy,  in  all  Asia  ! 

But  Moses  and  the  prophets  are  not  annihilated— the 
psalmists  and  the  historians  of  Israel  are  not  obsolete— 
the  Divine  Successor  of  Moses,  the  Messiah,  his  evange- 
lists, his  apostles— all  these  are  yet  speaking  to  mankind. 
In  the  Old  and  New  Testaments,  imperishable  as  the  evei»- 


240  DfiMOCRAGY  OF  CHRISTIANITY* 

lasting  hiils,  they  are  yet  traversing  the  earth,  and  fulfil- 
Jing  their  mission  over  again,  to  the  successive  generations 
of  nrien.  Their  achievements  have  scarcely  begun.  They 
came  to  this  Western  World  in  the  Mayflower,  and  a  na- 
tion was  born  in  a  day.  They  have  visited  the  Sandwich 
Islands,  Asia,  even,  to  distant  Burmah  and  China^  is  re 
ceiving  again  the  record.  There  is  hope  for  the  liberties 
of  the  masses  of  mankind,  while  the  record  remains.  The 
democratic  institutions  of  Moses,  the  miracles  of  Egypt, 
the  scenes  of  the  wilderness  and  ot  Sinai  were  not  enact- 
ed in  vain.  Their  influence  and  their  power  are  not  yet 
exhausted.  Their  course  is  still  onward.  Their  main 
work  is  yet  future.  Though  in  form  never  to  be  exactly 
restored,  their  spirit  is  to  guide  and  bless  man,  while  he 
lives  on  the  earth. 

We  must  not  omit  to  notice    another    manifestation  or 
tendency  of  the  Mosaic  arrangements,   connected   closely 
with  the  preceding,  or  involved  in  it,  namely  :  the  empha- 
sis they  give  to  the  family  institution,  and    through   that 
institution  to  the  common  brotherhood  and  equality  of  the 
people.      Wherever  autocratic  arrangements  are  perfected 
we  witness  the  powerful  influence  of  the  idea  of  superior 
rank,  as  derived  from  birth,  race,  family,  or  blood.     The 
royal  family  and  the  nobility  inflate  themselves  with   the 
conscious  dignity  of  descent  from  a  royal  and    noble    an- 
cestry, elevated  above  the  mass  of  the  people  whose  gen- 
ealogies have  not  been  preserved,  like  their  own,  for  many 
centuries  in  succession,  and  adorned  with  illustrious  and 
venerated  names,  whose  achievements  belong:  to  the    im- 
perishable  page  of  history,  and  whose  virtues  are  almost 
imagined  to  be  hereditary      Contrasting  themselves  with 
an  ignoble  peasantry  or  the  rabble  in  the  cities  whose  an- 
cestry can  not  be  traced  beyond  one  or  two    generations, 
nor  out  of  the  humble  avocations  of  life,  they  fancy  them- 
selves born  to  command  and  to  be    reverenced,    and   the 
masses  of  the  obscure  population,  born  to  obey  and  almost 
to  adore!     A  corresponding   effect   is    produced   on    the 


SEMOCRACV  OF  CHRISTIANITY.  241 

people  themselves.  They  too  are  accustomed  to  identify 
the  slate  and  its  dignity^  not  with  the  bulk  bt  its  inhabit- 
ants,  but  with  the  few  noble  or  royal  families  whose  well- 
authenticated  genealogy  connects  them  with  the  past  his- 
tory of  their  country — its  achievements,  its  institutions, 
its  vicissitudes.  With  no  knowledge  of  their  own  ances- 
try, they  learn  to  despise  themselves,  in  the  contrast,  as 
an  inferior  race,  and  if  they  ever  think  of  their  rights  at 
all,  they  only  conceive  of  the  rights  of  their  own,  class,  race, 
or  "estate,''  without  so  much  as  daring  to  imagine  the 
possibility  of  their  chiims  to  the  rights  which  arc  guaran- 
teed by  the  genalogies  of  the  privileged  families. 

In  marked  contrast  to  all  this  and  with  an  evident    de- 
sign to  counteract  and  uproot    all   such    aristocratic   and 
servile  imaginings,  the  Mosaic  arrangments  secured    the 
equal  nobility  of  the  entire  stock  ot  the  chosen  generation, 
the  "  kingdom  of  priests,  the  holy  nation,"  (Ex.  xix.  6.)  by 
the  public  preservation  of  their  genealogies.    Not  a  family 
could  there  be  so  ignoble,    so   debased,    so    obscure,  that 
their  ancestry  could  not  be  traced  back  to    the    remotest 
period  of  the  national  history  in  its  authenticated  records. 
The  most  despised  of  the  Hebrews  could  claim  his  descent 
from  the  loins  of  Abraham,  of  Isaac,  of  Jacob,  and  one  of 
the  twelve  patriarchy.     The  loftiest    among  them,  in  the 
midst  of  regal  splendors,  if  he  must   needs   aflect   them, 
could  claim  no  more — the  meanest  beggar  he  met  in  the 
streets  was  his  brother,  of  the  same  noble  descent  with  him- 
self, as  the  public  records  could  bear  witness  !  The  vicissi- 
tudes of  families  appeared  on  the  same  records.    Solomon 
was  seen  to  be  the    descendant   of   Kuth,   the   Moabitish 
gleaner,  and  the  carpenter  of  Nazareth  could  authenticate 
his  claim  to  the  throne  of  his  father  David. 

All  this  was  adapted  not  only  to  equalize,  but  to  frater- 
nize, to  cement,  to  unite.  Whatever  possessions  were 
secured  to  the  Hebrew,  were  secured  to  him  as  an  integral 
part  of  the /awiYy  to  which  he  belonged.  The  estate  of 
the  insolvent  debtor,  restored  in  the  jubilee,  was  restored 


242  dEmooraoy  of  Christianity. 

to  the  family.  The  Hebrew  in  his  public  responsibilities, 
relations,  rights,  perquisites,  privileges,  found  himself  re- 
cognized in  companionship  with  his  kindred,  and  "all  the 
congregation  of  the  children  of  Israel,  ixher  theix  families^ 
by  the  house  of  their  fathers,  with  the  number  of  their 
names,"  (Deut.  i.  2.)  and  declared  by  their  pedigrees. 
(v.  17.)  The  hereditary  priesthood  that  in  any  other 
nation  would  have  had  an  exclusive  and  invidious  aspect, 
appeared  congruous  to  the  Hebrews — ^for  the  descendants 
of  Levi  only  followed,  with  incidental  variations,  the  gen- 
ealogical structure  of  the  entire  national  edifice.  Their 
family  privileges  and  duties  were  indeed  peculiar.  But 
every  other  tribe  and  family  held  their  rights  by  a  similar 
and  not  less  honorable  tenure.  The  common  term,  "chil- 
dren of  Israel,"  connecting  them  all  with  the  great  father 
of  the  nation,  declared  them  all  equals.  Everywhere,  and 
andnot  forgetting  the  rights  of  females,  the  most  scrupulous 
and  solicitous  attention  was  given  to  the  security,  the  pros- 
perity, the  dignity,  and  the  comfort  o[ families.  Witness 
the  directions  concerning  the  daughters  of  Zelophehad  and 
the  statute  enacted  on  that  occasion.  (Deut.  xxxvi.)  Wit- 
ness also  the  law  of  exemptions  of  young  husbands  from 
military  service,  (Deut.  xx.  5-7,)  and  from  other  public 
business.  (Deut.  xxiv.  5.)  The  educating  and  refining 
influences  of  such  tender  and  delicate  precepts  are  not 
easily  estimated  j  nor  is  the  power  of  the  family  relation, 
as  thus  cherished  and  perfected,  less  potent  in  the  process 
of  that  elevation  of  the  peasantry  previously  noticed. 
Where  the  family  is  thus  dignified  and  ennobled  the  mass 
of  the  people  are  not  to  be  estimated  and  treated  as  the 
canaille. 

One  farther  feature  remains  to  be  noticed,  and  that  is 
the  unprecedented  extent  to  which  the  ideas  of  human 
personality  and  individual  responsibility  are  carried  in 
the  institutions  antl  arrangements  of  Moses.  The  divine 
purpose  of  having  an  educated  and  politically  sovereign 
peasantry  would  require  and  pre-suppose  this,    and   the 


OEMOCRACV  OF  Ciml3TIANTY«  243 

nobility  of  each  Hebrew  family  would  strongly  tend  to  its 
development.  And  accordingly  the  entire  structure  of 
the  Mosaic  institutions  is  conformed  to  this  primary  idea. 
In  all  other  institutions,  more  or  less— at  least  in  the  mo- 
narchical and  aristocratic  forms  farthest  removed  from 
those  of  xMoses— we  witness  the  overshadowing  and  well 
nigh  annihilating  and  murderous  ideas  o^ '' the  nation— the 
state,''  and  especially  the  '' government— the  government  V 
as  totally  distinct  from  the  people,  reducing  the  people  to 
meve '' subjects^'  passive,  inert  matter,  brute  engines, 
mere  machines,  to  be  possessed,  owned,  mould.ed,  used, 
wielded,  at  pleasure,  by  "  the  government,"  for  ''  reasons 
of  state  "—reasons  having  but  at  best  a  secondary  and  re- 
mote reference  to  the  rights  or  even  the  interests   of   the 

people. 

To  restore  man  to  his  manhood,  to  his  allegiance  to  his 
Great  Father,  this  perpetual  immolation  of  the  vian  upon  the 
altar  of  the  5^a^e,  this  mergingof  the  individual  in  the  nation 
this  substitution  of  the  mandate  of  a  government   distinct 
from  the  people  themselves,  acting  as  responsible  individ- 
uals, must  be  broken  up.     And  this  was   one    grand    end 
and  aim  of  the  polity  of  Moses.     No  such  man-destroying 
and  heaveuMnsulting  idea  as  that  of  a  human  civil  govern- 
ment distinct  from  the  mass  of  the  people   considered   as 
responsible  individuals,  did    it    recognize.     It    instituted 
no  such  government— it  provided  for  none.      What  it  said 
of  political  duties  and  responsibilities  it  said  to  the  '^  chil- 
dren of  Israel  "—to  the  people— to  all  of  them,    and    laid 
on  them  the  high  moral  responsibility  of  discharging  them. 
Elsewhere  than  to  the  hortitory    Deuternomy    of   Moses 
must  we  look  for  the  model  of  those   pious    dissertations 
sometimes  met  with  in  our    modern   Christian    literature 
concerning  the  relative  duties  of  "the  government"  and 
its  "  subjects."     When  any  thing  was  to  be  said  concern- 
ing the  proper  administration  of  the  law,  it  was  addressed 
to  "the  children  of  Israel ;"  when  obedience  to  that  same 
law  was  to  be  inculcated,  the  exhortation  was   addressed 


244  DEMOCRACY    OF    CilftlgTIANl'rV. 

to  the  same  «  children  of  Israel."  "  Ye  shall  do  '^  this  or 
"  ye  shall  not ''  do  that— or,  perhaps  more  frequently, 
"  thou  shalt  "  and  '^  thou  shall  not,"  thus  isolating  and  in- 
dividualizing the  persons  addressed,  is  the  divine  form  of 
the  command,  showing  plainly  that  the  'people^  individual- 
ly and  collectively,  were  held  responsible  for  political  and 
judicial  action.  If  the  duties  of  the  magistrate  are  ad- 
verted to,  they  are  the  duties  of  an  individual,  a  responsi- 
ble man,  not  of  '■''the  government,''^  or  aggregate  of  civil 
rulers,  considered  in  distinction  from  the  people.  The  at- 
tentive reader  of  Moses  will  find  how  accurately  and  how 
uniformly  the  expressions  employed  are  adjusted  to  this 
characteristic  feature  of  his  polity. 

Impressed  with  the  importance  of  this  Mosaic  branch  of 
our  investigations,  we  have  detained  the  reader  a  longer 
time  in  the  consideration  of  it  than  we  intended.  To  the 
writer,  if  not  to  the  reader,  it  has  proved  a  new  field  vast- 
ly richer  than  he  could  have  anticipated  when  he  com- 
menced the  investigation.  Whoever  would  understand 
and  sustain  free  institutions  should  study  the  common- 
wealth of  the  Hebrews. 


CHAPTER  XVIII. 

REVIEW    OF    THE    HEBREW    MONARCHY    FROM  SAUL  TO    ZEDEkIAH. 

We  have  dwelt  too  long  on  the  times  of  Moses  and  the  com- 
monwealth to  afford  the  space  for  an  equally  minute  attention 
to  the  remaining  portion  of  Hebrew  history.  This,  however, 
will  be  the  less  needful,  if  the  reader,  as  we  would  trust, 
has  been  sufficiently  initiated  into  the  scope  and  spirit  of  the 
great  lesson  of  the  divine  dealings  towards  that  singular  peo- 
ple. That  idea,  once  clearly  apprehended,  supplies  a  key  with 
which  the  subsequent  history  may  be  successfully  studied  by 


DEMOCRACY  OF  CHRISTIANITY.  245 

any  one,  at  his  leisure.     A  few  general  remarks  with  a   speci- 
men of  incidents  will  suffice  for  the  present  discussion. 

The  Hebrew  prophets  have  given  utterance  to  many  things 
bearing  directly  or  indirectly  upon  our  general  subject,  which 
the  attentive  student  would  not  be  likely  to  overlook.  Much 
of  this  might  be  appropriately  cited,  should  we  find  room, 
when  we  come  to  exhibit  the  direct  teachings  of  the  Scrip- 
tures. We  are  now  considermg,  more  particularly,  the  his- 
torical records,  the  prominent  facts  of  the  Bible.  The  pro- 
phetic writings,  occupied  as  they  are,  to  some  extent,  with 
what  was  then  present,  as  well  as  with  that  which  though  then 
future,  soon  became  history,  and  reverting  constantly  as 
they  do  to  the  past  annals  as  well  as  to  the  laws  and  institu- 
tions of  the  Hebrews,  become,  as  it  were,  part  and  parcel  of 
the  history,  and  quite  essential  to  a  proper  understanding  and 
use  of  it.  Besides  this,  the  prophetic  books  have  much  to  do 
with  the  aftairs  of  the  surrounding  nations,  and  much  instruc- 
tion on  the  general  subject  we  are  considering,  is  to  be  gath- 
ered from  what  the  inspired  prophets  announced  to  those  na- 
tions, or  concerning  them.  And  another  portion  of  the  prophe- 
cies are  interestino-  to  us,  in  tracino-  the  democratic  character 
and  tendencies  of  Christianity,  as  revealed  by  its  predicted  ef- 
fects and  bearings  upon  modern  society  and  upon  the  still  fu- 
ture condition  of  our  species.  For  the  present,  however,  and 
in  this  historical  department  of  our  investigations,  we  shall  only 
revert  to  the  prophecies  as  illustrating  and  enforcing  the  les- 
sons intended  to  be  conveyed  by  the  Old  Testament  history. 

This  history,  except  what  is  contained  in  the  five  books  of 
Moses,  (commonly  characterized  as  "  the  law")  we  have  in 
the  book  of  Joshua,  the  book  of  Judges  (already  considered,) 
the  book  of  Ruth,  the  two  books  of  Samuel,  the  two  books  of 
the  Kings,  the  two  books  of  Chronicles,  the  books  of  Esther, 
Ezra  and  Nehemiah.  These  brief  records,  or  many  parts  of 
them,  like  other  condensed  outlines  of  history,  may  seem  dry 
and  uninteresting  to  the  reader  who  has  not  come  into  special 
sympathy  with  the  people  whose  vicissitudes  are  thus  sketch- 
ed, nor  into  harmony  with  the  grand  objects  of  the  drama  pre- 


246  DEMOCRACY  OF  CHRISTIANITV. 

sented,  and  who  cherishes  no  particular  taste  for  those  revela- 
tions of  moral  and  political  cause  and  effect  which,  though 
wrapped  up  in  them,  are  visible  only  to  those  who  have  be- 
come familiarized  with  the  principles  lying  at  the  foundation 
of  human  society  on  an  extended  scale. 

And  hence  it  comes  to  pass  that  the  historical  parts  of  the 
Bible  are  so  little  studied  by  most  Christians,  and  some  have 
wondered  why  such  a  book  as  the  Bible,  a  book  so  intent  on 
high  spiritual  relations,  should  be  encumbered  with  so  much 
that  appears  to  be  mere  history,  and  that  too,  in  its  political 
aspect. 

The  truth  is,  the  spiritual  revelations  of  the  Bible  have  much 
to  do  with  the  common  affairs  of  life,  and  are  needed  to  guide 
us  in  our  natural  relations  and  the  every  day  duties  growing- 
out  of  them.  And  among  these  relations  and  duties  the  poli- 
tical are  not  the  least  important  and  comprehensive,  in  their 
bearing  upon  the  character  and  welfare  of  mankind.  The 
treatment  that  man  is  to  receive  from  his  fellow  man,  and  the 
moral  characters  that  are  to  be  formed  in  this  mutual  inter- 
course, depend,  in  no  small  degree  upon  those  arrangements 
and  activities  that  are  denominated  political,  that  affect  large 
communities,  states,  and  nations,  that  go  to  determine  and  con- 
stitute the  treatment  of  individuals  by  communities,  and  of 
communities  by  communities,  that  define  and  affect  other  rela- 
tions and  duties,  not  excepting  the  family  relation  itself  And 
to  a  thorough  knowledge  of  political  relations  and  duties,  with 
the  principles  by  which  they  are  determined,  an  outline  of  po- 
litical history,  illustrating  the  operations  of  moral  and  political 
causes  and  effects  seems  indispensible. 

If  the  books  of  the  Kings,  and  the  Chronicles  would  be  of 
little  value  standing  by  themselves,  the  institutions  of  Moses, 
and  the  sublime  teachings  of  the  prophets  would  be  far  less 
intelligible,  instructive,  and  impressive  without  them.  Who- 
ever would  understand  the  histor}^  become  interested  in  it,  or 
derive  benefit  from  it,  must  read  it  in  the  double  light  which 
the  previous  training  of  the  Hebrews  including  their  institu- 
tions and  laws,  together  with  the   glowing  comments,  reflec- 


DEMOCRACY    OF    CHRISTIANITY.  247 

tions,  predictions,  admonitions  and  ^Yal•nino•s  of  the  inspired 
prophets  thro^v  upon  it.  On  tlie  other  hand,  whoever  Avould 
comprehend  the  scope  of  the  prophets,  the  pertinency  of  their 
alkisions,  and  the  practical  applications  of  their  doctrmes  must 
read  them  in  the  light  of  the  historical  facts  that  gave  occasion 
to  the  utterance  of  them,  to  which  they  allude,  or  .vhich  they 
anticipate.  Our  too  exclusively  fragmentary,  disjointed,  and 
textual  habit  of  reading  the  Scriptures,  deprives  us  of  much  of 
their  value,  by  breaking  the  natural  connexion,  obscuring  much 
of  their  meaning,  and  concealing  many  of  their  beauties. 

The  inquirer  who  has  found  the  lesson  of  democracy  wrap- 
ped up  in  the  institutions  of  Moses,  and  in  the  previous  train- 
ing of  the  Hebrews,  will  not  fail  to  find  the  same  lesson,  in  the 
subsequent  Hebrew  history,  by  reading  it  in  the  light  of  Moses 
and  the  prophets.  To  any  other  reader  that  history  might 
suo-o-est  little  instruction  on  the  subject. 

One  general  remark  we- have  to  make  concerning  the  history 
of  the  Hebrews  from  the  coronation  of  Saul  to  the  captivity  of 
Zedekiah,   king  of  Judah,    a   period  of  nearly  five   hundred 
years,  is  the  general  and  continuous  decline  of  the  influence 
and  power  of  the  people  in  public  affairs,  especially  in  the  ten 
tribes.     Saul  became  king  in  obedience  to  the  popular  voice, 
and  during  his  reign,  the  vote  of  the  people,   for  good  or  for 
evil,  was  of  commanding  weight  and  effect.     On  one  occasion 
we  find  them  interposing  a  stern  and  dignified  veto   upon  his 
autocratic  and  unnatural  as  well  as  unjust  sentence  against  his 
son  Jonathan,  consigning  him  to  death,  at  the  very  moment  of 
his  achieving  a  great  deliverance  for  Israel,  on  the  flimsy  ground 
of  his  accidental  and  unconscious  disobedience  to  the  monarch's 
capricious  and  foolish  decree,  forbidding  the  use  of  food,  during 
the  day.     (I.  Sam.  xiv.)     In  another  instance  we  find  the  same 
monarch  excusing  his  derelictions  by  pleading,  whether  truth- 
fully or  not,  that  his  transgression  was  "because  he  feared  the 
people  and  obeyed  their  voice."     (lb.  xv.)     In  the  feuds  be- 
tween Saul  and  David,  and  between  David  and  Absalom,  the 
people  had  something  to  say— the  people  must  needs  be  con- 
sulted, negotiations  were  held  on  David's  behalf,  with  the  peo- 


/ 


248  DEMOCRACY  OF  CHRISTIANITY. 

pie,  and  as  the  people  determined,  so  the  controversy  was  set- 
tled. Thus  under  the  monarchy,  in  its  earlier  stages,  the  peo- 
ple were  heard  in  the  national  councils,  and  the  popular  ele- 
ment, substantially,  if  not  in  form,  was  still  recognized  in  the 
government.  Gradually,  as  in  the  history  of  other  subverted 
commonwealths,  the  voice  of  the  people  grew  fainter  and  faint- 
er, till  it  died  away,  and  the  mandate  of  the  monarch  became  law. 

As  the  democracy  declined,  the  autocracy  rose.  The  peo- 
ple sank  to  insignificance,  and  the  monarch,  as  Samuel  had 
predicted,  filled  their  place,  reducing  them  to  comparative 
vassalage.  When  dynasty  succeeded  dynasty  and  kings  were 
dethroned  to  make  place  for  kings,  when  Zimri,  (a  military 
commander)  conspired  against  Elah,  the  son  of  Baasha,  while 
in  a  drunken  revel,  and  slew  him,  and  reigned  in  his  stead, 
when  Jehu  slew  and  succeeded  Jehoram,  and  destroyed  Jeze- 
bel, and  the  seventy  sons  of  Ahab,  these  violent  revolutions,  in 
the  kingdom  of  Israel,  appear  to  have  taken  place  without  the 
action  of  the  inhabitants  of  the  country  in  general.  Military 
chiefs,  and  those  under  their  immediate  command,  appear  to 
have  been  the  actors  on  these  occasions.  When  Omri,  captain 
of  the  host,  dethroned  Zimri,  and  prevailed  against  Tibni,  the 
action  of  "the  people  of  Israel"  is  indeed  mentioned,  but  this 
seems  to  have  been  the  action  rather  of  the  army  "  encamped 
against  Gibbethon,"  (I.  Kings  xvi.  15,)  than  that  of  the  inhab- 
itants generally  in  their  rural  dwellings.  As  this  was  but 
about  one  hundred  and  forty  years  from  the  commencement  of 
the  monarchy,  some  little  trace  of  the  popular  element,  at 
times,  was  visible.  A  similar  instance  occurs,  at  a  later  date, 
in  the  kingdom  of  Judah,  above  two  hundred  years  after  the 
subversion  of  the  commonwealth.  Athaliah,  the  mother  of 
Ahaziah,  after  his  death,  arose,  and  destroyed  all  the  seed 
royal,  except  Joash,  who  was  secreted,  and  reigned  over  the 
land.  In  the  seventh  year  of  her  reign,  Jehoida,  the  priest, 
assembled  the  rulers  over  hundreds,  with  the  captains  and  the 
guard,  and  commanded  them  to  dethrone  Athaliah.  The  peo- 
ple also  assembled  to  assist,  and  the  object  was  accomplished. 
Though  in  part  a  popular  revolution,  it  was  effected  chiefly  by 


DEMOCRACY   OF  CHRISTIANITY.  249 

the  army  and  at  the  command  of  the  priest.     Athaliah  was 
slain,  and  Joash  cinointed  king.     (11.  Kings  xi.) 

At  an  earher  period,  the  democratic  element  had  been  far 
more  prominent  in  the  comparatively  uncorrupted  kingdom  of 
Judah.  Asa,  whose  reign  commenced  within  nearly  one  hun- 
dred and  forty  years  of  the  expiration  of  ihe  commonAvealth, 
"  did  that  which  was  good  and  right  in  the  eyes  of  the  Lord 
his  God."  (U  Chron.  xiv.  2.)  He  consulted  with  the  people 
in  respect  to  public  measures  {v.  7)  and  with  them,  as  a  con- 
stituent part  of  the  nation,  renewed  their  covenant  with  God. 
(xv.  12.)  Nevertheless  he  fell  into  serious  errors,  and 
imprisoned  the  prophet  who  reproved  him.  "  And  Asa  op- 
pressed some  of  the  people  the  same  time."  (xvi.  7-10.)  The 
latter  part  of  his  reign  was  less  equitable  and  democratic  than 
the  beginning. 

Under  the  reign  of  Jehosaphat,  the  son  of  Asa,  a  remarka- 
ble approximation  was  made  to  the  usages  of  the  ancient  com- 
monwealth. 

Jehosaphat  "  went  out  again  through  the  people,  from  Beer- 
sheba  to  Mount  Ephraim,  and  brought  them  back  to  the  Lord 
God  of  their  fathers.  And  he  set  judges  in  the  land,  through- 
out all  the  fenced  cities  of  Judah,  city  by  city ;  and  said  to  the 
judges,  Take  heed  what  ye  do,  for  ye  judge  not  for  man^  but 
for  the  Lord,  who  is  with  you  in  the  judgment.  Wherefore 
now  let  the  fear  of  the  Lord  be  upon  you;  take  heed  and  do 
it,  for  there  is  no  iniquity  with  the  Lord  our  God,  nor  respect 
of  persons,  nor  taking  of  ^'ifts." — //  Chron.  xix.  4-7. 

The  Court  of  Reference  or  Appeal  was  also  re-estabhshed  at 
Jerusalem.  And  in  the  next  chapter  we  have  an  account  of  a 
great  religious  and  political  convocation  of  the  people,  on  occa- 
sion of  a  threatened  invasion  from  the  children  of  Moab. 

"  And  Judah  gathered  themselves  together  to  ask  help  of 
the  Lord,  even  out  of  all  the  cities  of  Judah,  they  came  to  seek 
the  Lord.  And  Jehosaphat  stood  in  the  congregation  of  Judah 
and  Jerusalem,  in  the  house  of  the  Lord,  before  the  new 
court,  [and  led  the  public  devotions  on  that  occasion  by  solemn 
prayer!]  And  allJudah  stood  before  the  Lord,  with  their 
wives  and  little  ones,  and  their  children." 

And  the  Lord  heard  their  prayers,  and  delivered  them  from 
their  enemies.     Thu§  the  rcival  of  religion,  and  the  revival  of 


250  DEfiOCRACY  OF  CHRISTIANITY* 

the  spirit  of  brotherly  intercourse,  the  restoration,  to  some  ex- 
tent, of  the  ancient  democratic  usages,  went  hand  in  hand,  and 
were  accompanied  with  manifestations  of  the  divine  favor.  Tliis 
was  nearly  two  hundred  years  after  the  commonwealth. 

In  contrast  with  this  picture  we  might  place  the  autocratic 
reign  of  Ahab  and  Jezebel  over  the  ten  tribes.  The  prophets 
of  Baal  were  promoted  and  those  of  Jehovah  were  compelled 
hide  themselves.  ISTeither  life  nor  property  were  secure  when 
the  avarice  or  caprice  of  the  monarch  were  to  be  gratified. 
The  judicial  murder  of  Naboth  and  the  confiscation  of  his  in- 
heritancft  appears  to  have  produced  scarcely  a  ripple  of  excite- 
ment among  the  servile  and  subjugated  people,  who  held  their 
own  lives  and  estates  under  no  better  tenure  than  Ifaboth ! 
Not  a  vestige  of  the  spirit  or  of  the  usages  of  democracy  were 
visible  in  Israel,  then ! 

Joash,  king  of  Judah,  the  immediate  successor  of  Athaliah, 
commenced  his  reign  under  the  influence  of  Jehoidn,  the  priest, 
who  had  been  the  chief  instrument  of  restoring  to  him  the 
kingdom,  and  during  the  life-time  of  Jehoida  he  seems  to  have 
ruled  equitably,  and  the  temple,  as  noticed  in  another  connex- 
ion, was  repaired  by  the  spontaneous  contributi  ^ns  of  the  peo- 
ple. But  after  the  death  of  Jehoidah  "  came  the  princes  of 
Judah  and  did  obeisance  to  the  king;  then  the  king  hearkened 
unto  them,  and  they  left  the  Lord  God  of  their  fathers,  and 
served  groves  and  idols,  and  wrath  came  upon  Judah  and  Jeru- 
salem fyr  this  trespass." — //  Chron.  xxiv.  17-18.  Thus  the 
nobility  and  the  monarch  led  the  way  in  apostacy. 

In  tracing  the  dechne  of  the  spirit  of  democracy  and  of  the 
influence  and  power  of  the  people  in  public  affairs,  we  are  also 
compelled  to  notice,  and  in  the  same  history,  the  corresponding 
dechne  of  virtue  and  true  godliness.  And  in  every  instance  a 
revival  of  religion  and  sound  morality  is  found  to  have  been 
connected  with  the  increased  preponderance,  influence,  and  po- 
htical  activity  of  the  people.  At  such  periods  only  do  they 
appear  to  be  constituent  parts  of  the  state,  and  we  nearly  lose 
sioht  of  them,  altogether,  during  the  terrible  intervals  of  auto- 
cratic domination,  impiety,  outrage,  and  crime. 


DEMOCKACY  OF  CHRISTIANITY.  251 

From  the  times  of  Jehosopliat,  onward,  excepting  what  httle 
has  been  noticed  in  the  dethronement  and  execution  of  the 
wicked  Athaliah,  we  scarcely  meet  with  any  thing  in  the  his- 
tory of  the  kings  of  Judah  to  remind  us  that  there  was  a  peo- 
ple to  be  inquired  after,  or  to  catch  a  ghmpse  of,  or  who  had 
an}^  interest,  much  less  participancy  in  public  affairs,  till  we 
come  to  the  reign  of  Hezekiah,*  about  one  hundred  and  seventy 
years  after  the  reformation  in  the  times  of  Jehosaphat,  or  three 
hundred  and  twenty  after  the  close  of  the  commonwealth. 

Hezekiah  "did  that  which  was  right  in  the  sight  of  the 
Lord,"  In  restoring  the  worship  of  Jehovah,  he  took  coun- 
sel, not  only  with  the  priests,  and  his  princes,  but  with  ""all 
the  congregation  in  Jerusalem."  (II.  Chron.  xxx.  2.)  "  And 
it  pleased  the  king  and  all  the  congregation"  to  keep  the  pass- 
over,  and  to  invite  the  people  of  the  country  to  assemble  with 
them.  "And  all  the  congregation  w-orshipped."  (lb.  xxix. 
28.)  "And  Hezekiah  rejoiced  and  all  the  people,  that  God 
had  prepared  the  people,  for  the  thing  was  done  suddenly." 
fib.  V.  36.)  This  "was  however  at  a  previous  convocation.  At 
the  passover  "  there  assembled  at  Jerusalem,  much  people,  to 
keep  the  feast  of  unleavened  bread,  in  the  second  month,  a 
very  great  congregation."  (xxx.  13.)  "And  all  the  congre- 
gation of  Judah,  with  the  priests  and  the  Levites,  and  all  the 
congregation  that  came  out  of  Israel,  and  the  strangers  that 
came  out  of  the  land  of  Israel,  and  that  dwelt  in  Judah,  re- 
joiced." (v.  25.)  Hezekiah,  on  this  occasion,  offered  pubhc 
prayers  with  and  on  behalf  of  the  people,  {v.  19-20.)  This 
fraternal  intercourse  and  co-operation  seems  not  to  have  been 
confined  to  religious  assemblies.  On  the  threatened  invasion 
of  Jerusalem  by  Sennacherite,  king  of  Assyria,  some  time  after, 
the  people  and  Hezekiah  appear  to  have  been  ready  to  consult, 
to  pray,  and  to  co-operate  harmoniously  together,  and  God  de- 
livered them  from  their  adversaries  without  their  draAvino-  a 


*  Jutharr,  the  grandfather  of  Hezekiah,  "  did  that  v  hich  was  ritrlif  in 
the  sight  oi  (he  Lord,  howbeit  the  hi«h  places  were  not  r(Mnov(d,  I  he  peo- 
ple sacrificed  and  burnt  incense  still  in  the  h'fih  jihuc.'-.*'  — 11  Ku.gn  xv. 
34,  35.  The  idolatries  of  the  people  and  nothing  else  is  recorded  ol  thcni, 
under  this  reign. 


252  DEMOCRACY  OF  CHRISTIANITY. 

sword.  This  reformation  appears,  however,  to  have  been  of 
short  continuance,  and  Isaiah  draws  a  melancholy  picture  of 
the  latter  part  of  this  reign. 

The  reigns  of  Manasseh  and  Amon,  like  those  of  a  majority 
of  the  kings  of  Israel  and  of  Judah,  were  characterized  by  the 
general  prevalence  and  progress  of  wickedness,  on  the  part  of 
both  the  kings  and  the  people.  And  scarcely  a  vestige  of  the 
principles  of  democratic  equahty  and  fraternity  do  we  find  du- 
ring this  period,  though  Manasseh  is  recorded  to  have  become 
penitent  during  the  latter  part  of  his  life.  Amon  died  by  the 
hands  of  his  servants,  who  conspired  against  him. 

"  But  the  people  of  the  land  slew  all  them  that  had  con- 
spired against  King  Amon,  and  the  people  of  the  land  made 
Josiah,  his  son,  king  in  his  stead." — //.  Chron.  xxxiii.  25. 

Josiah  "  did  that  which  was  ridit  in  the  sio-ht  of  the  Lord." 
One  of  his  reformatory  acts  was  to  convene  the  great  mass  of 
the  people,  "  both  small  and  great,"  "  all  the  men  of  Judah  and 
inhabitants  of  Jerusalem."  When  assembled  Josiah  himself, 
in  person,  read  to  them  "  all  the  words  of  the  book  of  the  cov- 
enant which  was  found  in  the  hsiuse  of  the  Lord."  This  must 
have  been  the  covenant  written  by  Joshua,  as  noticed  in  an- 
other place,  a  covenant  to  observe  all  the  institutions  of  Moses. 

"  And  the  king  stood  by  a  pillar,  and  made  a  covenant  be- 
fore the  Lord,  to  walk  after  the  Lord,  and  to  keep  his  com- 
mandments, and  his  testimonies,  and  his  statutes,  with  all  their 
heart,  and  all  their  soul,  to  perform  all  the  words  of  this  cove- 
nant that  were  written  in  this  book.  And  all  the  people  stood 
to  the  covenant." — //.  Kings,  xxiii.  3. 

"  And  the  inhabitants  oi  Jerusalem  did  according  to  the  cove- 
nant of  God,  the  God  of  their  fathers." — //.  Chron.  xxxiv.  32. 

This  covenant,  had  it  been  fully  and  understandingly  adopt- 
ed and  carried  out,  not  only  by  the  inhabitants  of  Jerusalem, 
but  by  Josiah,  and  the  entire  nation,  would  have  amounted  to 
a  restoration  of  the  democratic  commonwealth  of  Moses.  But, 
like  most  other  reformations,  it  was  left  incomplete  and  was 
but  temporary. 

"  We  learn  from  the  event  that  most  of  those  present,  who 
stood  to  the  covenant,  were  hypocritical  in  the  transaction." — 
Scott. 


DEMOCRACY    OF   ClIRICTIANITY.  253 

The  succeedino-  kiiio-s  of  Judah  "  did  evil  in  the  sioht  of  the 
Lord"  until  Jerusalem  was  besieged  and  taken  by  the  Chal- 
dees,  the  temple  burnt  to  the  ground,  and  Zedekiah,  the  king^ 
was  carried  captive  to  Babylon,  with  the  principal  inhftbifants 
of  Judah  and  Jerusalem,  leaving  only  "  the  poor  of  the  land  to 
be  vine-dressers  and  husbandmen."  (II.  Kings,  xxv.)  Thus 
ends  the  history  of  the  monarchy  of  Judah, 

"  Surely,  at  the  commandment  of  the  Lord  came  this  upon 
Judah,  to  remove  them  out  of  his  sight,  for  the  sins  of  Manas- 
seh,  according  tj  all  that  he  did,  and  also  for  the  innocent 
blood  that  he  shed,  (for  he  filled  Jerusalem  with  innocent 
blood)  which  the  Lord  would  not  pardon." — //  Kings  xxiv. 
3,  4,  Manasseh  had  also  "  reared  up  altars  for  Baalim,  and 
made  groves,  and  worshipped  all  the  hosts  of  heaven  and 
served  them." — //  Chron.  xxxiii.  3. 

King  worship  and  image  worship,  with  the  abominations  and 
bloodshed  connected  with  them,  proved  the  ruin  of  Judah  as 
an  independent  nation.  The  spirit  of  true  religion  and  of  dem- 
ocratic fraternity  and  equity  having  disappeared,  the  measure 
of  her  iniquity  was  full. 

About  one  hundred  and  forty  years  previous  to  this,  the 
same  causes  had  terminated  the  history  of  the  kings  of  Israel, 
the  ten  tribes,  whose  capital  city  was  Samaria.  The  ruin  of 
this  nation  which  fell  with  her  reigning  dynasty,  was  accelera- 
ted in  advance  of  the  fall  of  Judah,  by  the  earlier  and  more 
deeply  seated  triumph  of  irreligion  and  autocratic  sway.  The 
whole  history  of  the  ten  tribes  after  their  revolt  from  the  son 
and  successor  of  Solomon,  may  be  epitomized  in  the  oft-repeat- 
ed statement  of  the  inspired  historian:  "Jeroboam,  the  son  of 
Nebat,  made  Israel  to  sin" — "Jeroboam,  the  son  of  Nebat 
made  Israel  to  sin!" 

The  people  had  virtually  renounced  Jehovah,  their  rio-htful 
King,  by  choosing  a  succession  of  human  kings  in  His  stead. 
The  fourth  of  these  proved  wholly  recreant  to  the  institutions 
of  Moses.  His  sojourn  in  Egypt  appears  to  have  confirmed  him 
in  his  love  of  idolatry  and  of  autocratic  power.  What  marvel 
that  he  should  have  set  up  images  in  Bethel  and  in  Dan — the 
symbols  and  ensigns,  perhaps,  of  dead  heroes  or  kings — and 
12 


254  DEMOCRACY    OF    CHRISTIANITY. 

worship  them  as  gods,  aspire  to  be  a  god  himself,  and  seduce 
the  people  from  the  worship  of  Jehovah  ? 

Of  all  the  successors  of  Jeroboam  on  the  throne  of  Israel, 
not  one  of  them  "  did  that  which  was  right  in  the  sight  of  the 
Lord" — not  one  of  them  that  did  not "  walk  in  the  way  of  Jero- 
boam, the  son  of  Nebat,  who  made  Israel  to  sin" — not  one  of 
them  that  did  not  appear  to  cherish  and  to  exercise  to  the  ut- 
termost, the  prerogatives  of  autocratic  authority  and  power — 
not  one  of  them  appeared  to  manifest  the  spirit  of  brotherly 
fraternit}'  with  the  people,  or  invited  them  to  any  share  in  the 
o'overnment — not  one  of  them  attempted  to  restore  the  demo- 
cratic judiciary  of  Moses,  or  to  renew  in  companionship  with 
the  people  the  covenant  of  Jehovah,  their  God.  One  over- 
whelming flood  of  impiety,  demoralization,  and  despotism,  with 
scarcely  an  incidental  intermission,  is  seen  flowing  from  the 
thrones  of  the  kings  of  Israel  and  their  profligate  courts,  over 
the  length  and  breadth  of  the  land.  Idolatry  and  servility,  two 
phases  of  the  same  thing,  were  every  where  witnessed.  The 
worship  of  Baal  and  Ashteroth  assorted  well  with  admiration 
of  Jeroboam  and  implicit  obedience  to  Ahab.  Intermarriages 
and  treaties  of  affinity  between  the  royal  families  of  Israel  and 
Judah  injected  into  the  veins  of  the  latter  kingdom  the  same 
fatal  poison  that  had  destroyed  the  former. 

Of  the  people  of  the  ten  tribes,  after  the  accession  of  Jero- 
boam, the  son  of  Nebat,  w^e  hear  little  except  what  is  recorded 
of  their  servihty  and  their  wickedness  in  walking  in  the  steps 
of  their  kings.  They  seemed  to  have  lost  the  desire  and  almost 
the  capacity  to  think  and  act  for  themselves,  as  responsible 
men.  Their  highest  ambition  was  to  obey  and  imitate  their- 
mao-nificent  and  idolized  kings !  AVherever  their  kings  went 
they  were  ready,  blindfold,  to  follow.  Their  voluntary  relin- 
quishment of  the  high  moral  and  political  responsibilities  com- 
mitted to  them,  appears  to  have  deprived  them  of  moral  vision, 
as  those  lose  the  use  of  their  eyes  or  other  bodily  senses  who 
abuse  them  or  who  refuse  to  employ  them. 

Only  one  or  two  exceptions  present  themselves  in  the  en- 
tire history — only  one  or  two  instances  in  which  the  people  or 


DEMOCRACY  OF  CHRISTIANITY.  255 

any  considerable  portion  of  them  adventured  to  liave  any  con- 
sciences of  tlieir  own  in  respect  to  public  afTairs,  or  to  lisp  an 
expression  adverse  to  the  ^vishes  and  tastes  of  the  reigning 
king.  On  one  occasion  a  prophet  of  the  Lord  named  Oded, 
addressing  himself  to  the  people,  not  to  their  king,  persuaded 
them  to  liberate  and  restore  to  their  frfcnds,  the  captives  Avhom 
they  had  taken  from  the  land  of  Jiidah,  in  war.  (II  Chron. 
xxviii.)  When  Elijah  confronted  the  prophets  of  Baal,  appeal- 
ing to  the.  jyeople  and  not  to  king  Ahab,  though  in  his  presence, 
to  decide  whether  Jehovah  or  Baal  should  be  publicly  recof^- 
nized  as  the  true  God — when  the  fire  came  down  from  the 
Lord  and  consumed  the  burnt  sacrifice — then  "  when  all  the 
people  saw  it  they  fell  on  their  faces  and  said,  The  Lord,  He  is 
the  God,  the  Lord,  He  is  the  God!"  Under  the  impulse  of  the 
moment  they  forgot  their  idolatrous  and  idolized  monarch,  -ac- 
knowledged their  true  King,  and  proceeded  at  Elijah's  com- 
mand to  arrest  the  prophets  of  Baal,  the  favoi-ites  of  king  Ahab 
and  his  queen  Jezabel.  This,  however,  was  but  a  temporar}^ 
excitement,  as  Elijah  understood,  and  therefore  hid  himself  in 
anticipation  of  a  re-action.  Though  the  Lord  had  reserved  to 
himself  seven  thousand  men  who  had  not  bowed  the  knee  to 
Baal,  yet  these  were  too  few  in  comparison  with  the  whole  na- 
tion, or  too  timid  and  hesitant  in  view  of  the  king's  power  and 
the  prevailing  servility,  to  attempt  the  recovery  of  their  rights, 
or  the  restoration  of  the  national  covenant,  made  by  Joshua 
and  the  people  of  his  times  to  maintain  the  institutions  of  Mo- 
ses. The  people  of  Israel  in  abjuring  the  religion  he  taught 
them  repudiated  their  own  liberties  and  political  authority  of 
course,  and  placed  themselves  at  the  meroy  of  despots. 


256  DEMOCRACY    OF    CnRISTIANITT. 

CHAPTER  XIX. 

SCENES  OF  BABYLON  AND  SHUSHAN. 

Of  the  ten  tribes  no  farther  record  has  come  down  to 
us.  Of  the  captives  of  Judah  and  Benjamin,  in  Babylon 
and  Shusan,  some  instructive  accounts  are  preserved.  The 
prophet  Daniel  was  among  these,  and  gives  us  some  re- 
markable narratives  of  God's  methods  to  humble  the  pride 
of  despots  and  check  the  unlimited  arrogance  of  autocra- 
tic power,  and  also  of  the  faithful  practical  testimonies  of 
pious  Hebrews  on  that  subject,  and  the  divine  approbation 
and  protection  of  them. 

Nebuchadnezzar,  king  of  Babylon,  like  most  autocrats, 
exalted  himself  in  God's  stead,  and  demanded  the  honors, 
the  worship,  and  the  obedience  due  only  to  the  Creator. 
He  was  also  a  worshipper  of  dumb  idols,  and  earnestly 
intent  on  promoting  the  veneration  of  them  among  his 
subjects.  It  is  from  no  mere  accidental  coincidence  that 
the  most  absolute  despots  are  commonly  given  to  super- 
stitious idolatries,  and  zealous  for  maintaining  the  wor- 
ship of  false  gods  and  the  images  of  them  among  the  peo- 
ple. Whoever  attempts  to  exalt  himself  above  the  natural 
and  common  level  of  the  humanity  of  which  he  was  made 
a  partaker,  can  not  fail  to  sink  himself  beneath  the  dignity 
of  a  true  man.  The  vanity  that  desires  servile  homage  is 
nearly  akin  to  the  servility  that  renders  it.  If  the  auto- 
crat cherished  no  affinities  for  servility  he  would  be  dis- 
gusted, not  gratified,  when  he  himself  was  offered  the  in- 
cense of  it.  The  truly  noble  mind  is  made  such  by  its 
veneration  of  God,  and  instinctively  repels  all  servile  and 
idolatrous  approaches  with  the  apostolic  "  Sirs,  why  do 
ye  these  things  V  (Acts  xiv.  15)  or  with  the  angelic  '^See 
thou  do  it  not  !"  (Rev.  xxii.  9.)  The  connection  between 
king-worship  and  image-worship  which  we  noticed  in  the 
story  of  Pharaoh  and  Egypt,  is  equally  visible  in  the  an- 


DEMOCRACY^  OF    CHRISTIANITT.  257 

nals  of  the  kings  of  Babylon.  Aspiring  to  be  as  gods 
themselves — the  first  sin  of  our  first  parents — and  intend- 
ing that  their  own  statues  and  fanriily  ensigns — whether 
stars,  suns,  calves,  crocodiles,  or  lions — should  be  ven- 
erated by  their  descendants  and  by  the  people  in  coming 
ages,  it  stood  them  in  hand  to  see  to  it  that  the  statues 
and  ensigns  of  their  predecesors,  especially  of  their  an- 
cestors, should  not  fall  into  contempt. 

We  would  not  atfirm  that  all  the  image-worship  of  the 
ancient  heathen  can  be  traced  directly  in  the  manner  hint- 
ed at  to  the  worship  of  heroes  and  kings.     Inanimate  ob- 
jects and  the  supposed  elements    of   nature,    sun,    moon, 
stars,  fire,  animals,  vegetables,  and  implements  of  utility 
may  have  come,   in    time,    to    be    worshipped    on    other 
grounds  ;  but  there  are  historical  as    Vv'ell   as  philosoph- 
ical data  for  the  belief  that   man-u^orship  took   the   lead 
of  all  the  ancient  idolatries,  and  either   directly    or   indi- 
rectly introduced  all  the  rest.     Man  ceases  to  be   a   wor- 
shipper of  God  only  because  he  has  become  a  worshipper 
of  himself.     In  the  subsequent  struggles  of  rivalry  he  is 
often  compelled  to  yield  homage  to  some  stronger  self  in 
the  person  of  a  fellow  man.     Estranged  from   his  God  lie 
finds  no  nobler  object  of  worship  than  the  strongest  man. 
No  v^here  else,  not  even  in  the  sun,  can  he  find  so  much — 
notwithstanding   human    infirmity — that   seems    to    him 
like  the  image  of  God.     The  strong  man  first,   then   his 
statue,  or  ensign,  or  coat-of-arms  becomes  the  god  of  the 
millions.  The  names  and  histories  of  many  of  the  ancient  di- 
vinities are  identified  with  the  traditionary  history  of  some 
powerful  man.     Thus  Ham,  the  son  of   Noah,   who    first 
planted  Egypt  and  Lybia,  became  the  god  of  those  coun- 
tries under  the  name  of  Hammon  or  Ammon,   afterwards 
Jupiter  Ammon,  and  Alexander  the  Great,  who  aspired  to 
be  a  god,  hired  the  priests  of   Jupiter  Ammon   to  declare 
him  the  son  of  that  divinity.     Menes,  the  founder  of   the 
Egyptian  monarchy,  was  worshipped  as  a   god   after   his 
death,  and  is  supposed  to  have  been  the  same  as  Misraim, 


258  DEMOCRACY  OF  GHRISTIANITT. 

the  son  of  Ham.  Uranus,  Saturn,  Pluto,  and  Neptune^ 
heathen  divinities,  are  supposed  to  have  been  kings  and 
princes  among  the  ancient  Grecians.  Buddh,  an  eastern 
prince  and  philosopher,  cotemporary  with  Daniel,  the  pro- 
phet, is  still  the  god  of  Siam.  Confucius  is  worshipped 
as  a  god  in  China.  Woden  and  Thor  were  first  chiefs  and 
then  gods  among  the  Saxons.  Hero-worship,  king-wor- 
ship, and  saint-worship  are  the  basis  of  idolatrous  image- 
worship.  Even  Napoleon,  in  his  day,  was  solemnly  can- 
onized, and  every  year,  almost,  adds  to  the   calendar. 

Nebuchadnezzar  lived  at  a  time  when  hero-worship, 
king-worship,  and  image-worship  were  at  their  height, 
and  among  a  people  with  whom  the  propriety  of  the  whole 
was  unquestioned.  Nebuchadnezzar  was  himself  a  god 
in  the  eyes  of  his  subjects,  and  in  his  own  eyes — his  au- 
thority was  unlimited,  supreme — his  mandate,  like  that  of 
the  Phariohs,  was  law.  He  had  heard,  doubtless,  of  the 
God  of  the  Hebrews  j  but  the  Hebrews  were  his  ca-ptives, 
and  Israel  was  a  conquered  and  dispersed  nation.  The 
Jehovah  of  the  Hebrews  he  may  have  supposed  to  have 
been  one  of  their  dead  monarehs  &r  heroes — whoever  he 
was  he  must  have  been  worsted  by  the  divinities  of  Bab- 
ylon— so  he  imagined.  At  any  rate  he  himself  was  god 
over  his  own  territory  and  entitled  to  be  worshipped  there, 
whoever  might  be  the  god  of  the  land  of  Canaan.  The 
Assyrians  who  had  been  removed  into- Samaria,  after  the 
conquest  of  the  ten  tribes,  had  indeed  been  compelled,  on 
account  of  the  lions  sent  by  Jehovah  among  them,  to  do 
Him  a  sort  of  homage,  and  professed  priests  of  Jehovah 
had  been  procured  to  "  teach  them  the  manner  of  the  God 
of  the  land."  (i\  Kings  xvii.  26.)  A  corresponding  com- 
ity would  require  that  the  Hebrews  residing  in  Babylon 
should  pay  an  equal  deference  to  the  gods  who  reigned 
there.  So  Nebuchadnezzar  may  have  argued,  and  the 
theology  whatever  we  may  think  of  it,  was  the  nat- 
ural result  of  the  autocratic  principle  then  maintained. 
If  all    autocrats    and    those    who  bow  down  to  them   do 


DEMOCRACi^  OF  CHRISTIANITY.  -o9 

iiot  go  to  the  full  length  of  all  this,  it  is  only  because  the 
principle  has  been  counteracted  and  held  in  check  by  op- 
posite  teachings.     In    Babylon  the  principle  had  its  full 

scope.  ^^ 

"  Nebuchadnezzar,  the  king,  made  an  image  of  gold, 
and  "  set  it  up  in  the  plain  of  Dura,    in   the   province   of 
Babylon."     He  summoned  the  princes,  the  governors,  the 
captains,  the  judges,  the  counsellors,  the  sheriffs,  and  all 
the  rulers  of  the  provinces  throughout  his  empire,  to  at- 
tend  the  dedication  of  this  image.     Among    these    rulers 
were  three  Hebrew  youths,  Shadrach,  Meshach,  and  Abed- 
nego,  whom  the  king   had   previously  promoted  to   high 
sta'tions.     it  was  taken  for  granted  that  they  were  to   be 
present  and  participate  in  the  appropriate  solemnities  and 
ceremonies  of  the  occasion.     It  was  doubtless  known  that 
they  were  Avorshippers  of  Jehovah,  the  God  of  their  fath- 
ers ;  but  why  should  that  prevent  them  from    showing  a 
decent  respect  for  the  gods  of  Babylon  ?     Were  they  not 
officers  under  Nebuchadnezzar,  who  was  one  of  them  ;  and 
if  the  Assyrians  in  the  land  of  Israel  could  "fear    Jeho- 
vah, and  yet  serve  their  own  gods,"  Succoth-benoth,  Ner- 
gal,' Ashima,  Adrammelech,  and  Andrammelech,  (H  Kings 
xvii.  27-il)  why  could  not  these  young  Hebrews  show  au 
equal  superiority  to  vulgar  prejudices,  and  conform  them- 
selves to  the  circumstances  of  the   times    in    which  they 
were  placed  ^     They  were  not  required  to  pay  exclusive 
or  supreme  homage  to  this  god  of  the  Babylonians  ;  it  it 
not  certain  that  they  themselves  regarded  him  as  tho  su- 
preme God.    They  were  not  called  upon  to  say  which  they 
regarded  as  having  the  precedence,  the  god  whose  statue 
was  set  up  in  Dura,  or  the  Jehovah  of  the  Hebrews.     All 
that  was  demanded  of  them  in  respect  to  the  former  was 
that  they  should  do  before  him  the  customary  act  of  rev- 
erence.     As  to  the  literal  worship  of  the  image  itself,  it 
is  not  to  be  supposed  that  l hat  was  expected  of  them.  The 
image  was  only  the  symbol  or  representation  of  the  real 
obiect  of  the  Babylonian  reverence,  probably  one  of  their 


260  DEMOCRACY    OF  CHRISTIAlS'ITT. 

powerful  and  perhaps  virtuous  and  heroic  chieftains  of  a 
former  age.  Not  one  in  a  hundred  among  the  heathen, 
ancient  or  modern,  but  would  tell  us — as  the  Roman  Cath- 
olics do — that  it  is  not  the  image  but  only  the  being  or 
characteristics  represented  by  it,  that  they  worship.  With 
these  reserved  riews  of  the  matter,  why  might  not  the 
young  Hebrews  comply  ?  Might  not  the  hero,  or  the  at- 
butes  of  strength,  wisdom,  or  goodness,  intended  to  be 
thus  symbolized,  b3  deserving  of  a  decent  regard  1 

Had  they  been  schooled  in  the  philosophy  of  hero  wor- 
ship and  of  king  worship  as  cherished  and  taught  by 
some  in  our  times — had  they  learned  from  the  same 
school  that  the  abstract  qualities  of  strength,  wisdom, 
and  goodness,  wherever  found,  are  the  proper  objects  of 
human  adoration — that  all  the  beings  and  things  that  can 
be  regarded  either  as  the  possessors  or  the  symbols  of 
these  qualities  are  entitled,  along  with  the  great  Jehovah, 
to  a  proportionate  share  of  our  adoration,  thus  introdu- 
cing an  almost  infinite  variety  and  gradation  of  the  prop- 
er yet  subordinate  objects  of  worship — had  they  learned, 
moreover,  that  graven  images  are  only  the  symbols,  the 
hieroglyphics,  the  alphabet  of  those  who  had  no  other 
letters,  that  the  use  of  them  is  proper,  provided  the  ven- 
eration be  not  transferred  from  the  quality  or  thing  sym- 
bolized to  the  gross  block  of  wood,  metal,  or  marble,  rep- 
resenting it,  (a  grossness,  to  the  charge  of  which,  nine- 
tenths  of  the  heathen  would  plead  "  not  guilty,") — had 
the  three  Hebrew  youths  been  inducted  into  the  sublime 
mysteries  o{  such  a  philosophy,  so  manifestly  akin  to  that 
which  lay  at  the  basis  of  the  ancient  idolatries  and  des- 
potisms they  might  have  found  it  less  difficult  to  comply 
with  Nebuchadnezzar's  decree. 

We  would  avoid  doing  injustice  to  the  philosophy  in 
question.  Some  sublime  truths  it  must  have,  of  course, 
like  all  other  false  systems,  or  it  could  have  no  power  to 
mislead.  The  masters  of  this  school  would  not  become 
image    worshippers  in  the  gross  sense.     Thej'^  might  in- 


DEMOCRACY  Di-   CtlRlSTiANiTV.  261 

deed  have  no  need  of  the  use  of  images  themselves.  And 
image  worship,  when  they  think  it  abused,  they  are  quite 
wiilinof  to  see  overturned.  For  the  ''  imas^e  breaker,"  in 
such  cases^  they  express  a  deg-ree  of  respect.  Nay,  the 
'Strong  image  breaker  they  might  reverence  as  a  hero,  de- 
serving of  a  costly  statue  and  a  share  ot  hero  worship,  in 
his  turn.  But  its  image  breaking  and  its  image  building 
would  be  likely  to  go  hand  in  hand. 

The  three  Hebrews  at  the  court  of  Babylon  were  of 
sterner  materials.  They  had  been  trained  in  quijte  anoth- 
er school — the  school  of  Moses.  They  knew  nothing  of 
the  divine  right  of  kings — nothing  of  the  worship  of  he- 
roes—nothing of  the  supreme  authority  in  human  beings 
• — nothing  of  the  binding  force  of  autocratic  power.  They 
had  studied — notwithstanding  the  intervening  Hebrew 
monarchy— the  principles  o(  the  ancient  Hebrew  common- 
wealth. The  democratic  idea  of  man,  and  the  corres- 
ponding idea  of  God,  the  Father  oC  man,  were  not  wholly 
eradicated  from  their  minds.  They  remembered  the 
W'Ords  of  the  Decalogue.  "  Thou  shalt  have  no  other 
gods  before  me.  Thou  shalt  not  make  unto  thee  any 
graven  image.  *  *  Thou  shalt  not  bow  down  thyself 
to  them,  nor  serve  them."  Like  Paul  at  Mars'  Hill,  they 
were  ready  to  abjure  the  use,  not  simply  the  abuse,  of 
such  symbols.  "  Forasmuch  then  as  we  are  the  offspring 
of  God,  we  ought  not  to  think  that  the  Godhead  is  like 
unto  gold,  or  silver,  or  stone,  graven  bj'-  art  and  man's  de- 
vice."— ^cts  xvii.  29.  From  the  Hebrew  prophet  Isaiah, 
they  had  heard  similar  language,  and  in  a  similar  con- 
nexion— '*  To  whom  then  will  ye  liken  God  1  Or  what 
iikencss  will  ye  compare  unto  him  1" — Isa.  xl.  18. 

Where  neither  hero  worship,  king  worship,  nor  saint 
worship  have  first  corrupted  or  superseded  the  worship  of 
Jehovah,  the  people  can  be  in  little  danger  of  worship- 
ping graven  images  er  even  of  thinking  them  suitable 
symbols  of  the  object  of  worship.  The  lengthened  dis- 
tance between  the  spiritual   worship  of  Jehovah  and  the 

12* 


262  DEMOCRACY  OF  CHRISTIAJIinf 

gross  worship  of  brute  matter,  or  even  its  use  as  a  sym- 
bol, is  not  to  be  taken  at  one  stride.  There  must  be  in- 
termediate steps.  What  can  they  be  but  the  worship  of 
the  compound  and  intermediate  creature  man,  allied  at 
once  to  the  Divinity  and  to  the  dust  of  the  earth  1  Had 
it  not  been  for  autocracy,  despotism^  monarchy,  aristoc- 
racy or  prelacy,  in  some  of  their  varied  forms,*  such  a 
phenomenon  as  image  worship  or  the  use  of  them  in  re- 
ligion would  seem  unaccountable  and  incredible.  The 
student  of  Christian  church  history  may  notice  this  hint 
and  examine  the  subject  at  his  leisure. 

God  had  a  double  object  to  accomplish  by  the  captivi- 
ty of  the  Hebrews  in  Babylon.  He  meant  to  chastise  arid 
reform  his  chosen  people  5  and  also  to  reprove  and  in- 
struct the  idolatrous  autocrat  of  Babylon  and  his  servile 
dependants.  Yet  the  two  objects  were  one.  In  both  di- 
rections he  meant  to  strike  a  blow  at  image  worship  and 
the  man  worship  that  lay  at  the  foundation  of  it.  The 
scenes  of  Dura  form  one  act  of  the  drama  providentially 
arranged  for  this  purpose.  The  three  Hebrews  persisted 
in  their  refusal  to  obey  the  monarch  or  do  homage  to  his 
image.  They  were  cast  into  the  fiery  furnace,  and  their 
miraculous  preservation  while  their  appointed  execution- 
ers were  consumed,  conveyed  the  lesson  designed.  The 
impotence  of  the  gods  of  Babylon,  her  reigning  monarch 
included,  was  exhibited  in  striking  contrast  to  the  Jeho- 
vah of  the  Hebrews,  the  only  living  and  true  God. 

This  miracle  was  wrought,  not  less  to  confound  the 
living  god  of  the  Chaldees  than  their  dead  one — not  less 
to  reprove  the  idolatrous  homage  paid  to  Nebuchadnezzar 
than  the  worship  of  the  golden  image  set  up  in  Dura.  It 
was  a  miracle  wrought  against  the  principle  of  autocracy 
prevailing  in  Babylon  as  truly  as  against  the  practice  of 
statue  veneration  that  had  grown  out  of  it. 

if  any  one  doubts  this,  let  him  pursue  the  thread  of  the 


*  Of  these — not  excepting  the  [irelacy — the  Hebrew  commonwealth, 
as  has  already  been  shown,  was  to  coniani  no  specimens. 


DEMOCRACY  OF  CHAtatLVNltV.  fig^ 

*iarrative  to  the  sequel.  Nebuchadnezzar,  it  seems,  had 
been  constrained  to  acknowledge  that  there  was  no  other 
God  that  could  deliver,  like  the  God  of  the  Hebrews. 
His  confinence  in  his  golden  inmage  and  the  dead  god  it 
represented  was  greatly  shaken,  if  not  destroyed*  There 
was  one  of  the  gods  of  Babylon,  however,  whom  he  still 
thought  deserving  of  worship^  and  that  god  was  himself! 
He  may  have  fallen  into  the  mistake  of  supposing  that 
only  the  worship  of  the  dead  gods  or  of  their  statues  had 
boen  reproved  by  the  miracle  that  had  taken  place.  What- 
ever check  may  have  been  given  to  the  practice  of  vene- 
rating dead  gods  and  their  images,  the  principle  of  autoc* 
racy  and  king  worship,  the  root  of  the  whole  mischief, 
his  own  pride  and  self-exaltation  still  remained.  If  the 
golden  gods  and  the  dead  monarchs  and  heroes  could  no 
longer  accomplish  anything,  Ae,  at  least  was  a  living  and 
reigning  god,  still,  whom  nations  obeyed  and  at  whose 
mandate  great  cities  were  builded.  Of  this,  though  fore- 
warned of  his  destiny,  he  could  not  forbear  boasting  :  "Is 
not  this  great  Babylon  that  I  have  built,  for  the  house  of 
the  kingdom,  by  the  mjght  of  my  power,  and  for  the  hon- 
or of  my  majesty  1"  That  is,  am  not  I  a  king — a  hero — 
deserving  of  glory  and  renown  1  So  the  hero  worship- 
pers around  him  supposed,  and  reverently  bowed  down 
to  him.  He  had  "  grown  and  become  stro7ig  ;  his  great- 
ness was  grown  and  reached  unto  heaven,  and  his  domin- 
ion to  the  end  of  the  earth."  Who  might  claim,  if  he 
couJd  not,  the  divine  right  of  kings  I  Was  not  kingship 
to  be  predicated  of  strength  ?  Were  not  his  achievements, 
his  strength,  his  greatness,  his  kingly  powers  deserving 
of  veneration  1  So  the  then  prevalent  philosophy  of  king 
worship  assured  him  ;  and  so  it  discourses  even  to  this  daJ^ 
But  what  was  the  sentence  of  heaven  pronounced  upon 
him. 

"  They  shall  drive  thee  troni  men,  and  tliy  dwelling 
shall  be  with  the  beasts  of  the  held,  and  they  shall  make 
thee  to  eat  grass  as  oxen,  and  seven  times  shall  pass  over 


264  v^^iocuAot  Gt-  cfmisfUSitri 

thee^  until  thou  know  that   the  Most  High   ruleth  in  the 
kingdom  of  men,  and  giveth  it  to  whomsoeter  He  wilL" 

♦' The  sanrie  hour  was  the  thing  fulfilled" — the  plain 
import  of  which  is  that  when  the  strongest  and  greatest 
of  men  aspire  to  unlimited  power  over  their  brethren  and 
lord  it  orer  them  as  gods^  receiving  and  claiming  homage 
from  them,  God  regards  them  as  having  forfeited  their 
equal  station  among  their  fellows,  Affecting  to  rise 
above  them  they  sink  in  reality  below  them^  and  become 
brutish,  like  the  beasts  of  the  field.  When  they  come  to 
themselves,  like  the  king  oi  Babylon — ^^if  they  ever  do — ■- 
they  will  '^  extol  and  honor  the  God  of  heaven,''  and 
learn  that  '*  all  the  inhabitants  of  the  earth  are  reputed 
as  nothing"  in  His  presence^  There  is  little  scope  or  dis- 
position for  king  worship,  then* 

Nebuchadnezzar  was  succeeded  by  Belsfia^zar,  his  son. 
Though  he  knew  the  story  of  his  father,  he  "  lifted  up 
himself  against  the  God  of  heaven,'^  and  insulted  Him  irj 
his  revelries,  drinking  wine  with  his  princes^  his  wives, 
and  his  concubines,  out  ot  the  silver  Vessels  taken  by  his 
father  from  the  temple  of  Jehovah,  at  Jerusalem,  *'They 
drank  wine,  and  praised  the  gods  of  gold,  and  of  silver,- 
of  brass,  of  iron^  of  wood,  and  of  stone,"  but  "the  God 
in  whose  hand  was  bis  life,  and  breath,  and  whose  wer6 
all  his  ways,"  he  did  not  glorify.  What  else  could  be 
expected  in  the  atmosphere  ot  an  autocratic  court  / 
Coulfl  the  reigning  despot  claim  and  receive  a  homage 
not  accorded  by  himself,  his  princes,  his  ^vives,  and  his 
concubines,  to  the  memory  of  his  illustrious  predecessors 
and  fathers,  as  represented  by  their  ensigns,  their  sym- 
bols, and  statues  1  Of  how  could  he  worship  no  God  but 
the  common  and  equal  Father  of  all  men,  and  yet  retain 
over  the  masses  the  unlimited  dominion  of  a  supefrior  be- 
ing, a  divinity,  a  god  1  Had  not  even  the  kings  of  Israel 
and  Judah,  in  order  to  fortify  the  claims  of  their  kingly 
majesty  over  the  people,  been  compelled  to  repudiate  the 
exclusive   worship   of  such  a  God  1     This  God  of  the 


CEMdciiAct  0^  ciiRisTUNltir.  263 

masses,  to  whom  every  body  might  look  up,  calling  Him 
Father,  might  be  a  vefy  good  God  in  His  place^  and  do 
Well  enough  for  the  captiVe  Hebrews  :  but  the  gods  of 
the  princes  of  Babylon  were  now  to  be  honored^  and  what 
could  be  more  appropriate  than  that  the  vessels  taken 
from  the  temple  of  the  conquered  God  of  the  Hebrews 
should  do  service  on  such  an  occasion  1 

Thoughts  like  these  we  may  imagine  to  have  passed 
through  the  mmd  of  Belshazzar  as  the  banquet  was  pre^ 
paring  and  as  it  went  forward. 

"In  the  same  hour  came  forth  fingers  of  a  man's  hand^ 
and  wrote  over  against  the  candlesticiv  upon  the  plaster  of 
the  wall  of  the  king's  palace  ;  and  the  king  saw  the  part 
of  th.e  hand  that  wrote.  *  *  Then  the  king  cried  aloud 
to  bring  in  the  astrologers,  the  Chaldeans,  and  the  sooth- 
sayers'' — 

In  vain  !  "  They  could  not  read  the  writing  or  make 
known  the  interpretation  thereof,"  till  DanAel,  "  of  the 
children  of  the  Captivity"  appeared,  and  declared  it. 

"  Mene,  rnene^  tekel,  upharsin. -^God  hath  numbered  thy 
kincrdom,  and  finished  it.  Thou  art  weighed  in  the  bal* 
ances,  and  art  found  wanting.  Thy  kingdom  is  divided 
and  given  to  the  IMedes  and  Persians." 

"  In  that  night  was  Belshazzar,  the  king  of  the  Chalde^ 
ans  slain,  and  Oariusj  the  Median  took  the  kingdom." 
Another  rebuke  of  autocratic  impiety  and  pride! 
Darius  ought  to  have  profited  by  the  scenes  that  had  been 
enacted  at  Babylon.  He  seems  to  have  been  one  of  the 
noblest  of  his  class  of  men  ;  but  how  difficult  is  it  to  hold 
the  position  of  an  autocrat  and  not  imagine  one's  self  a 
divinity  to  whom  all  around  must  pay  divine  honors! 
Thus  it  was  with  Darius.  How  readily  he  gave  his 
sanction  to  a  decree  that  for  the  space  of  thirty  days  no 
one  should  offer  a  prayet  or  petition  of  any  god  or  man 
but  himself!  The  obvious  intent  and  significancy  of  this 
was  to  confirm  his  autocratic  authority  in  his  new  empire 
— to  make  it  felt  and  understood  that  he  was  indeed  a 
god — not  inferior  to  any  of  the  divinities  ever  worshipped 
at  Babylon — nay,  that  he  was  now  to  be   recognized   and 


260  DEMOCRACY  OF  OIIRISTIANITY. 

reverenced  throughout  his  dominions  as  superior  to  each 
and  all  of  them^  not  excepting  the  Jehovah  of  the  He- 
brews, of  whose  power,  by  this  time,  the  Chaldeans  must 
have  received  some  impressionsj 

This  confirms  the  view  we  have  before  taken  of  the  na- 
ture of  autocratic  authority,  and  of  the  close  connexion,  % 
not  to  say  identity  of  autocracy  and  idolatry  among  the 
ancientSi  Not  even  Bel  himself,  the  god  of  the 
Babylonians,  after  whom  the  lather  of  Belshazzar 
was  proud  to  surname  him  as  his  heir  apparent-^ 
not  Bel,  who  for  many  generations  had  been  wor- 
shipped as  a  god,  and  to  whom  temples  and  images  had 
been  consecrated — the  golden  stutue  at  Dura  being  per- 
haps one  of  them — could  be  accounted,  for  thirty  days,  on 
an  equality  with  Darius  !  And  we  may  repeat  here  the 
demand  we  made  concerning  the  Pharaohs  and  Egypt- 
how  could  God  reprove  the  ancient  heathen  idolatries 
without  reproving  the  claims  of  autocratic  power  ^. 

The  necessity  of  such  impious  pretensions  to  the  con- 
firmed supremacy  of  an  absolute  autocrat  in  those  days, 
may  be  seen  and  illustrated  in  the  case  of  Darius.  He 
seems  not  to  have  been  personally  emulous  of  divine  hon- 
ors aside  from  the  political  advantages  connected  with  it. 
His  presidents,  princes,  and  governors  had  devised  the 
measure,  and  he  must  needs  comply  with  it  for  reasons  of 
state.  Unlike  his  immediate  predecessors  on  the  throne 
of  Babylon,  and  unlike  the  Pharaoh  who  withstood  Mo- 
ses, Darius  was  not  so  besotted  as  to  suppose  himself  su- 
perior to  the  God  of  the  Hebrews.  His  langua'ge  to  Daniel, 
"  Thy  God  whom  thou  servest  continually.  He  will  deliver 
thee,"  is  a  sufficient  proof  of  his  knowledge  in  that  direc- 
tion. But  the  stability  of  his  throne,  in  the  view  of  his  " 
presidents,  princes,  and  governors,  must  needs  be  secured, 
and  so  he  must  assent  to  the  impious  decree.  To  have 
refused  would  havebeen  to  lose  caste  among  the  great  mon- 
archs  of  antiquity  who  were  all  gods,  and  so  Darius  must 
needs  be  a  god  with  the  rest  of  them. 


DEMOOIIAOY  OF  OHRISTIANITV.  267 

But  no  Hebrew,  without  abjuring  the  God  of  his  fath- 
ers— who  permits  no  king-worship,  no  hero-worship,  no 
saint-worship,  and  shares  not  His  divine  honors  with  any 
other  gods— could  submit  to  the  decree  of  Darius.  The 
enemies  of  Daniel,  the  Hebrew,  understood  this  and  anti- 
cipated his  refusal  ;  but  they  did  not  foresee  his  deliver- 
ance from  the  den  of  lions,  nor  their  own  deserved  pun- 
ishment. Their  terrible  destruction  and  the  proclamation 
of  Darius  recognizing  the  God  of  Daniel  constituted  an* 
other  act  of  the  great  Providential  drarna  by  which  the 
worship  of  both  the  living  and  the  dead  gods  of  the  an- 
cients was  reproved  in  the  sight  of  all  men.  Even  the 
masses  of  community  and  the  most  menial  of  them  must 
have  learned  to  abate,  somewhat,  of  the  reverence  they 
had  paid  to  their  kings — to  perceive  that  monarchs  were 
but  men,  as  they  themselves  were — to  conceive  of  Jeho- 
vah's supremacy  and  of  man's  equality  with  man — to  be 
less  idolatrous,  less  degraded,  less  servile.  Such,  at  least, 
was  the  lesson  provided  for  them.  Nor  is  it  to  be  believed 
that  the  magnificent  scenes  of  Babylon  were  enacted  in  vain, 
any  more  than  those  of  Egypt,  or  lost  to  the  nations  and  the 
ages  that  came  afterward.  Kingly  power,  in  Europe,  to-day, 
and  even  in  Central  Asia,  may  be  less  intolerable  on  account 
of  thechecksthen  interposed  against  autocratic  assumption. 

Darius,  the  Median,  was  succeeded  by  Cyrus,  the  Per- 
sian. The  seat  of  empire  was  transferred  to  Shushan, 
and  Ahasuerus  filled  the  throne,  and  "  reigned  even  from 
Jndia  to  Ethiopia,  over  an  hundred  and  seven  and  twenty 
provinces."  Here  opens  another  gorgeous  scene  of  Eas- 
tern magnificence  and  autocratic  power.  Of  the  people, 
we  see  little — all  is  swallowed  up  in  splendoi-  of  the  king 
• — "  his  palace,  his  white,  green,  and  blue  hangings,  fas- 
tened with  cords  of  fine  linen  and  purple,  to  silver  rings 
and  pillars  of  marble,  the  beds  gold  and  silver  upon  a 
pavement  of  red,  and  blue,  and  white,  and  black  marble." 

The  moral  features  of  the  picture  correspond  and  har- 
monize— a  festival  of  princes  for  six   months    in    succes- 


S68  tifiMOCRACl^   OP   CllRlSttAiJttVi 

sion— royal  wine  in  abundance — the  king's  vanity — th^ 
queen's  pride — the  divorce — the  hararn — no  Jaw  but  the 
royal  caprice— no  security  but  the  vicissitudes  of  his  favor 
- — life  and  death  suspended  upon  the  motion  of  his  finger  L 
What  a  contrast  to  the  court  of  the  congregation  in  the 
time  of  Moses  !  Here  too  we  have  the  intrigues  of  cour* 
tiers,  the  ambition  of  Ham.an,  the  murderous  decree 
against  the  Hebrew  captives.  The  story  of  Mordecai  and 
Esther  presents  us  with  a  contrast  between  the  manners 
and  the  morals  of  Asiatic  autocracy,  as  seen  in  the  court 
of  Ahasuerus  on  the  one  hand,  and  the  simple  dignity  in* 
duced  by  the  Mosaic  course  of  training  on  the  other.  In 
Mordecai  we  see  something  of  the  sturdy  democracy  of 
the  ancient  Hebrew  commonwealth,  disdaining  to  bow  be- 
fore the  unprincipled  but  courtly  favorite  of  royalty,  even 
in  the  king's  gate.  The  God  of  the  Hebrews  in  His  all" 
controlling  Providence  was  there  with  him  and  his  op- 
pressed brethren,  and  the  sequel  of  the  story  tells  on 
which  side  that  Providence  was  enlisted.  At  Shushan 
\ve  meet  with  no  royal  decrees  requiring  the  worship  of 
images  or  prohibiting  prayer  to  any  but  the  king!  The 
scenes  of  Babylon  were  still  in  remembrance — the  pro- 
clamations of  Nebuchadnezzar  and  Darius  were  still  fresh 
on  the  public  records. 

The  prophet  Ezekiel  was  "  among  the  captives  by  the 
l-iver  ot  Ghebar"  when  he  'saw  the  visions  of  GJod."  A 
large  portion  of  his  message  was  addressed  directly  to  the 
captives,  reproving  them  for  their  sins,  exhorting  them  to 
repentance,  and  thus  preparing  the  way  for  their  return 
to  their  oWn  land.  At  the  same  time,  in  connexion  with 
the  scenes  enacted  at  Babylon,  his  writings  may  have  af* 
fected  deeply  the  Chaldeans  and  their  kings,. 


DEMOCRACY  OF  CHRISTIANITY.  269 


CHAPTER  XX. 

THE  RESIORATION — THE  REBUILDING  OF  THE  TEMPLE  AND 
WALL  OF  JERUSALEx^I. 

The  scenes  of  Babylon  and  Shushan  were  well  calcula- 
ted to  prepare  the  way  for  the  return  and  establishment 
in  their  own  country  of  a  select  remnant  of  the  Hebrews 
with  the  assent  and  assistance  of  the  reigning  mo^iarchs 
of  Chaldea  and  Persia.  The  better  portion  of  the  Hebrew 
captives  were  led  by  their  calamities  to  reflection  and  re- 
pentance. The  wisest  of  the  kings  who  held  them  in 
captivity  were  impelled  to  yield  homage  to  Jehovah,  to  re- 
lax their  grasp  on  His  worshippers,  and  even  to  assist  in 
the  restoration  of  His  worship,  which  could  not  but  include, 
to  some  extent,  the  restored  rights  of  the  worshippers. 
The  tolerated  worship  of  the  true  God,  the  Father  of  all 
men,  is  of  itself  a  relaxation,  to  no  small  extent,  of  the 
claims  of  autocracy — a  fact  which  the  story  of  the  re- 
stored remnant  of  the  captivity  of  Judah  and  Jerusalem  is 
well-adapted  to  illustrate.  The  demand  by  Moses,  *' Let 
my  people  go  that  they  may  serve  mc,"  contained  an  im- 
plication of  the  same  truth,  which  Pharaoh  appears  to  have 
understood. 

The  supplication  and  confession  ot  Daniel  recorded  in 
the  ninth  chapter  of  the  book  bearing  his  name,  with  the 
prayers  and  confessions  of  Ezra,  Nehemiah,  and  the  peo- 
ple of  the  captivitj'^,  which  appear  on  their  records — the 
proclamation  of  Cyrus  in  the  first  chapter  of  Ezra — the 
charter  of  Artaxerxes  to  Ezra,  (Chapter  vii.)  of  Artaxerx- 
es  to  Nehemiah,  (Neh.  ii.)  and  the  decree  of  Darius  (Ezra 
vi.)  are  sufficient  data  for  the  statements  we  have  just 
now  made  concerning  the  changed  state  of  sentiment  both 
among  a  portion  ol  the  captivity  and  of  the  monarchs  that 
reigned  over  them 

One  of  the  most  remarkable   features  of   the    times  of 


2/0  DEMOCRACY   OF  CHRISTIANITY. 

the  restoration  was  the  re-appearance  of  the  people  as  an 
element  of  civil  society,  and  their  activity  in  public  affairs, 
contrasting-  strongly  with  the  prevalent  aspect  of  things 
under  the  Hebrew  dynasties  before  the  captivity. 

The  proclamation  of  Cyrus  is  a  recognition  of  the  people 
of  Jehovah.  Having  learned  something  of  the  God  of  the 
Hebrews,  that  monarch  seems  to  have  understood  that 
where  He  was  worshipped  there  was  a  people  to  be  recog- 
nized, and  that  ^o  Me??i  the  appeal  was  to  be  made  for 
their  spontaneous  co-operation  and  action,  if  the  temple  of 
Jehovah  was  to  be  builded. 

"  Thus  saith  Cyrus,  king  of  Persia,  The  Lord  God  of 
heaven  hath  given  me  all  the  kingdoms  of  the  earth,  and 
He  hath  charged  me  to  build  Him  an  house  at  Jerusalem 
which  is  in  Judah.  Who  is  there  among  you,  of  all  His 
people  1  His  God  be  with  him  and  let  him  go  up  to  Je- 
rusalem which  is  in  Judah,  and  build  the  house  of  the 
Lord  God  of  Israel  (He  is  the  God)  which  is  in  Jerusa- 
lem. And  whosoever  remaineth  in  any  place  where  he 
sojourneth,  let  the  men  of  the  place  help  him  with  silver 
and  with  gold,  and  with  goods,  and  with  beasts,  besides 
the  free  will  offering  for  the  house  of  God  which  is  in  Je- 
rusalem." 

"Then  rose  up  the  chief  of  the  fathers  of  Jadah  and 
Benjamin,  and  the  priests  jlnd  the  Levites,  with  all  them 
whose  spirit  God  had  raised,  to  go  up  to  build  the  house 
of  God  which  is  at  Jerusalem." — Ezra  i.  2-5. 

None  went  by  compulsion — all  was  free,  voluntary,  un- 
constrained. JNor  does  it  appear  that  anyone,  in  the  first 
place,  was  invested  with  authority  from  the  monarch,  to 
exercise  a  control  over  his  brethren.  After  a  record  of 
their  names  and  families,  in  the  second  chapter,  we  are 
told  of  the  voluntary  contributions  of  the  principal  men, 
according  to  their  ability,  and  of  the  occupancy  of  dif- 
ferent cities  by  the  Levites  and  some  of  the  people. 
"  Joshua,  the  son  of  Jozedac,  and  his  brethren  the  priests, 
and  Zerubbabel,  the  son  of  Shealthial,"  were  among  the 
most  active  and  prominent.  The  latter  appears  to  have 
been   called   governor.     The    prophet   Haggai   speaks  of 


DEMOCRACY  OF  CliUrSTIANITY.  271 

Joshua  as  being  high  priest,  and  Zerubbabel  as  being 
governor.  The  high  priesthood  was  probably  in  the  reg- 
ular line  of  succession.  Whether  Zerubbabel  held  any- 
official  position  under  commission  of  Cyrus,  does  not  ap- 
pear, but  it  is  evident  that,  if  it  wore  so,  his  primary 
nomination  must  have  been  by  the  people.  Nehemiah,  a 
long  time  afterwards,  was  commissioned  by  Artaxerxes 
with  a  special  embassy  and  for  a  limited  period,  but  the 
record  contains  no  grant  of  civil  authority.  It  is  quite 
remarkable,  as  is  noticed  by  commentators,  that  on  his 
arriving  at  Jerusalem,  he  cautiously  abstained  from  pre- 
senting his  commission,  till  he  had  reconnoitered  the 
ground,  and,  addressing  the  people  as  brethren,  had  ex- 
horted them  to  build  the  wall,  and  obtained  their  free 
consent  and  co-operation,  in  the  object  of  his  mission. 
(Neh.  ii.) 

"  Nehemiah  seems  to  have  used  every  precaution  to 
conceal  his  intentions,  till  he  had  obtained  the  unanimous 
consent  of  the  people^  and  they  were  actually  employed  in 
the  work." — Scott. 

The  fraternal  bearing  and  democratic  habits  of  Nehe- 
miah, especially  his  forbearing  to  make  himself  burthen- 
some  to  the  people  for  his  support,  place  him  in  striking 
contrast  with  the  kings  of  Babylon  and  the  monarchs  of 
Israel  and  Judah.  Nehemiah  is  also  called  the  "  tirsha- 
thii,"  or  governor,  and  he  evidently  was  so  by  the  choice 
of  the  people,  whatever  may  have  been  his  commission 
from  the  king. 

The  charter  of  Artaxerxes  by  Ezra,  (above  twenty 
years  after  the  first  expedition  of  Jerubbabel  and  his  com- 
panions) conferred  authority  upon  him  to  "  set  magis- 
trates and  judges  which  may  judge  the  people  beyond 
the  river,  all  such  as  know  the  laws  of  thy  God,  and 
teach  them  that  know  not."     (Chap,  vii.) 

"It  is  remarkabie  that  a  heathen  prince  should  lay  no 
other  restriction  on  Ezra  and  his  brethren  in  disposing  of 
the  treasures  they  collected,  except  that  they  should  be  em- 
ployed after  thy  will  of  their  God.      The  whole  commission 


272  DEMOCRACY  OF  CHRISTIANITY. 

implied  a  chartered  right  to  the  Jews  to   live  according  to 
their  own  laws.^"* — ^cott. 

If  these  provisions  were  fully  carried  out,  as  we  have 
no  reason  to  question  they  were,  the  "  magistrates  and 
judges"  were  "  set"  according  to  the  "  laws  of  God"  by 
the  hand  of  Moses — that  is,  they  were  elected  by  the 
people.  We  know  that,  in  Nehemiah's  time,  when  the 
people  were  assembled  en  masse^  with  fasting,  with  their 
Levites,  priests,  and  governor,  they  solemnly  renewed 
the  national  covenant  and  sealed  it,  and  "entered  into  a 
curse  and  oath  to  walk  in  God's  law,  which  was  given  by 
Moses,  the  servant  of  God,  and  to  observe  to  do  all  the 
commandments  of  the  Lord  our  God,  His  judgments  and 
His  statutes."  This  was  equivalent  to  the  covenant  in 
the  time  of  Joshua,  and  it  restored — so  far  as  any  public 
act  of  the  kind,  on  their  part,  and  in  their  dependant 
condition  could  restore  it — the  ancient  Hebrew  common- 
wealth. 

Throughout  the  records  of  Ezra  and  Nehemiah,  we  see, 
everywhere,  the  revived  political  existence,  activity,  and 
responsibility  of  the  people.  The  commission  or  charter 
to  Ezra,  already  noticed,  couples  with  him,  his  "  brethren'^ 
in  Judah  (Ez.  vii.  18,)  as  having  direction,  along  with  him, 
of  the  "  free  will  offerings"  he  was  to  carry  from  their 
brethren  in  Babylon.  In  the  important  public  transac- 
tions recorded  in  the  tenth  chapter  of  Ezra,  '•  all  Israel" 
was  party  to  the  solemn  oaths  there  recorded.  "  All  the 
congregation"  responded  to  the  appeals  then  made  to 
them.  "  And  the  children  of  the  captivity  did  so."  The 
building  of  the  wall,  in  the  time  of  Nehemiah  is  narrated 
as  the  work  oi  the  people  ;  various  descriptions  and  avo- 
cations of  whom,  with  their  several  achievements  are  enu- 
merated in  detail  5  the  whole  account  conveying  the  im- 
pression that  it  was  done  spontaneously,  yet  with  great 
order,  requiring  mutual  concert  and  co-op?ration,  intelli- 
gence and  public  spirit..  On  one  occasion  the  people  of 
"Judah  said — the  stren^rth  of  the  bearer  of  burthens  is 


DEMOCRACY  OF  CHKISTIANIT V.  273 

decayed,  and  there  is  mucii  rubbish,  so  that  we  are  not 
able  to  build  the  wall."  They  felt  the  burthen  of  the  re- 
sponsibility they  had  assumed,  to  be  a  heavy  one.  Great 
assemblies  and  convocations  of  the  people  were  common. 
The  eighth  chapter  of  Nehemiah  contains  an  account  of 
one  of  them,  in  which  they  assembled  to  listen  to  the 
reading  ofthe  law — the  same  law  that  contained  the  char- 
ter of  their  political  rights. 

One  of  the  most  remarkable  political  agitations  on 
record  is  to  be  found  in  the  fifth  chapter  of  Nehemiah. 
There  arose  a  complaint  on  the  part  of  the  poorer  portion 
of  the  people  that  they  had  been  compelled  to  mortgage 
their  lands,  vineyards,  and  houses,  to  buy  corn,  because 
ofthe  dearth.  Others  of  them  had  borrowed  money  for 
the  king's  tribute,  upon  similar  securities.  Their  wealth- 
ier brethren  were  therefore  coming  into  possession  of 
their  estates,  and  some  of  their  sons  and  daughters  were 
coming  into  bond  service  to  them  for  the  payment  of 
these  debts.  They  were  greatly  distressed  and  knew  not 
what  to  do.  Their  cry  came  to  the  ears  of  Nehemiah  5  he 
was  the  governor  of  the  province.  The  chief  men,  and 
nobles,  and  rulers  of  Judah,  with  some  of  the  priests  it 
would  seem — the  natural  associates  and  assistants  of  Ne- 
hemiah— were  the  capitalists  and  creditors  in  this  case, 
and  had  undoutedly  considered  it  a  fair  business  transac- 
tion. Had  Nehemiah  cherished  the  sentiments  or  pursued 
the  policy  of  most  men  in  similar  stations,  he  would  have 
been  silent,  or  would  have  upheld  the  claims  of  the  nobles, 
and  rulers,  and  men  of  wealth.  Exactly  the  opposite  of 
this  was  his  course.  He  reproved  them  openly,  and  made 
no  secret  of  his  indignation  against  them — he  contributed, 
of  set  purpose,  to  increase  the  popular  agitation — he  con- 
vened an  immense  mass  meeting,  a  people's  convention — 
he  "  set  a  great  assembly"  against  the  claimants — in  their 
presence  he  publicly  remonstrated  against  their  exactions, 
and  conjured  them  to  restore  the  estates,  and  also  an 
hundreth  part  of  their  original  demands. 


274  DEMOCRACY    OF    CHRISTIANITY. 

*'  Then  they  said,  We  will  restore  them,  and  exact  no-  | 
thing- of  them.''  Nehemiah  "  took  an  oath  of  them  that  1 
they  should  do  according  to  this  promise."  Also  he  "  shook 
his  lap  and  said,  So  God  shake  out  every  man  from  his 
house,  and  from  his  labor,  that  performeth  not  his  prom- 
ise, even  thus  shall  he  be  shaken  out  and  emptied.  And 
all  [the  congregation  said.  Amen,  and  praised  the  Lord. 
And  the  people  did  according  to  this  promise. 

This  commonwealth  must  have  been  somewhat  radically 
democratic  to  have  survived  an  agitation  of  this  charac- 
in  which  the  chief  magistrate  was  leader.  The  "nobles" 
could  have  wielded  little  or  no  exclusive  power.  The  re- 
vival of  the  spirit  of  democracy  and  of  the  usages  of  the 
commonwealth  was  simultaneous  with  a  corresponding 
reformation  of  morals^  the  restoration  of  a  purer  worship, 
and  the  revival  ot  true  religion.  The  convocations  already 
mentioned  were  seasons  of  humiliation,  confession,  in- 
struction, amendment  and  consolation.  The  restored 
brotherhood  of  the  people  and  their  veneration  of  Jeho- 
vah, their  Common  Father,  went  hand  in  hand. 

While  the  Hebrew  reformers  were  thus  distinguished 
for  their  democratic  spirit,  their  adversaries,  the  subtle 
enemies  of  Jehovah  and  His  worship,  who  plotted  con- 
stantly the  defeat  of  the  w^ork  of  restoration,  were  in  all 
respects  of  an  opposite  character,  the  sycophants  and 
spies  of  autocratic  power.  Though  pretending  to  be  wor- 
shippers of  Jehovah  themselves,  and  proposing  co-opera- 
tion with  the  restored  captives  of  Judah,  they  art^'ully  la- 
bored to  frustrate  and  destroy  them.  In  the  times  of  Ze- 
rubbabel  and  Joshua  they  "  hired  counsellors  against  them 
to  frustrate  their  purpose,"  and  wrote  letters  to  king^l 
Ahasuerus  representing  that  Jerusalem  was  "  a  rebellious 
city  and  hurtful  to  kings" — that  *'  this  city  of  old  time 
hath  made  rebellion  against  kings,  and  that  rebellion  and 
sedition  hath  been  made  therein."  By  this  means  they 
excited  the  jealousy  of  the  king,  and  caused  the  work -of 
building  the  temple  to  cease  until  the  second  year  of 
the  reign  of  Darius. 


DEMOCRACY  OF  CHRISTIANITY.  275 

111  the  times  of  Nehemiah  a  similar  opposition  was  car- 
ried on  by  Sanbailat,  and  Tobiah,  and  Geshom,  the  Ara- 
bian, with  their  confederates.  They,  in  like  manner, 
represented  that  the  Jews  intended  to  rebel  against  the 
grand  monarch,  and  bj  various  arts  endeavored  to  decoy, 
to  intimidate,  and  to  annoy  them. 

The  prophecies  of  Haggai,  Zcchariah,  and  Malachi,  the 
last  three  books  of  the  Old  Testament,  were  written  in 
Judaii  after  the  return  of  the  captives,  and  shed  some 
light  on  the  characteristic  features  of  this  period.  The 
reproofs  of  Haggai  directed  to  both  the  rulers  and  the 
people,  together  with  the  encouragements  and  exhorta- 
tions addressed  to  them,  in  respect  to  public  aflairs,  im- 
ply plainly,  as  the  language  of  the  earlier  prophets  had 
done,  the  political  responsibilities  of  the  people.  The  ex- 
hortations, the  warnings,  and  the  predictions  of  Zechariah 
lead  us  to  conceive  that  oppression  was  one  of  the  sins  to 
which  the  people  and  their  priests  and  rulers  were  ex- 
posed. 

"  Thus  saith  the  Lord  my  God,  Feed  the  flock  of  the 
slaughter  whose  possessors  slay  them,  and  hold  them- 
selves not  guilty,  and  they  that  sell  them  say,  Blessed  be  the 
Lord,  for  I  am  rich  ;  and  their  own  shepherds  pitj^  them 
not.  For  I  w^ill  no  more  pity  the  inhabitants  of  the  land, 
saith  the  Lord,  but  lo  !  1  will  deliver  the  men  every  one 
into  his  neighbor's  hand,  and  into  the  hand  of  his  kins', 
and  they  shall  smite  the  land,  and  out  of  their  hand  I  will 
not  deliver  them." — Chap.  xi.  4>-6. 

This  has  been  thought  a  prediction  of  the  destruction 
of  Jerusalem  by  the  Romans,  and  the  language  certainly 
resembles  that  of  the  Savior  not  long  before  that  event  : 
"  Ye  devour  widows'  houses  and  for  a  pretense  make  long 
prayers,  therefore  ye  shall  receive  the  greater  damna- 
tion." 

The  book  of  the  prophet  Malachi  contains  some  bold  re- 
proofs of  the  priests,  warnings  against  the  sin  of  oppress 
ion,  pathetic  appeals  to  people  on  the  claims  of  iuinmn 
brotherhood,  and  of  the  familv  relation." 


276  DEMOCRACY  OF  CnRISTIANITT. 

"  And  now,  O  ye  priests,  this  commandment  is  to  you. 
If  ye  will  not  liear,  and  if  ye  will  not  lay  it  to  heart,  to 
give  glory  unto  my  name,  saith  the  Uord  of  hosts,  I  will 
even  send  a  curse  upon  you,  and  I  will  curse  your  bless- 
ings ;  yea,  1  have  cursed  them  already  because  ye  do  not 
lay  it  to  heart.  Behold  I  will  corrupt  your  seed,  and 
spread  dung  upon  your  faces,  even  the  dung  of  your  sol- 
emn feasts,  and  one  shall  take  you  away  with  it!" — MaL 
ii.  1-3. 

This  is  not  the  language  of  a  sycophant  of  prelacy,  nor 
(as  the  prophet  does  not  appear  to  have  belonged  to  the 
priesthood)  does  the  precedent  seem  to  favor  the  notion 
that  clerical  delinquencies  are  not  to  be  reproved  by  the 
laity.  Neither  does  it  convey  the  impression  of  the  gen- 
eral purity  of  the  priesthood,  at  that  period. 

The  prophet,  in  the  name  of  the  Lord,  proceeds,  still 
farther,  to  reprove  them,  and  adds— 

"  Therefore  have  I  also  made  you  contemptible  and  base 
before  all  the  people,  according  as  ye  have  not  kept  my 
ways,  but  have  been  partial  in  the  law.  Have  we  not  all 
one  Father  1  Hath  not  one  God  created  us  ?  Why  do 
we  deal  treacherously  every  one  against  his  brother,  by 
profaning  the  covenant  of  our  fathers  V — v.  9-10. 

"And  I  will  come  near  you  to  judgment,  and  will  be  a 
swift  witness  against  the  sorcerers,  and  against  the  adul- 
terers, and  against  false  swearers,  and  against  those  that 
oppress  the  hireling  in  his  v/ages,  the  widow  and  the 
fatherless,  and  that  turn  aside  the  stranger  from  his  sight, 
and  fear  not  me,  saith  the  Lord  of  hosts." — Chap.  iii.  5. 

"  For  behold  the  day  cometh  that  burneth  like  an  oven, 
and  all  the  proud,  [the  aristocratic]  yea,  and  all  that  do 
wickedly,  shall  be  as  stubble,  and  the  day  that  cometh 
shall  burn  them  up,  that  it  shall  leave  ihem  neither  root 
nor  branch." — Chap.  iv.  1. 

The  last  words  of  this  prophecy,  and  the  last  of  the 
Old  Testament,  uttered  above  four  hundred  years  before 
the  coming  of  the  Savior,  are  emphatic  and  solemn. 

"  Remember  ye  the  law  of  Moses,  my  servant,  which  I 
commanded  him  in  Horcb,  with  the  statutes  and  judgments. 
Behold  I  send  you  Elijah  the  prophet,  before  the  coming 
of  the  great  and  dreadful  day  of  the  Lord.  And  he  shall 
turn  the  heart  of  thefathers  to  the  children,  and  the  heart 


DEMOCRACY  OF    CHRISTIANITY.  277 

of  the  children  to  the  fathers,  lest  I  come  and  smite  the 
earth  with  a  curse." 

**  The  Ixw  of  Moses,  with  the  statutes"  (the  common 
law)  "the  judgments"  (the judiciary)  with  the  democratic 
institutions  wrapped  up  in  them,  were  all  unrepealed. 
The  subversion  of  the  commonwealth,  the  long  succession 
of  kings,  the  captivity,  the  restoration,  had  not  annulled 
them,  and  there  they  stood,  and  should  stand,  obeyed  or 
disobeyed,  through  the  long  lapse  of  generations,  with- 
out the  voice  of  prophecy,  to  the  coming  of  John  the  Bap- 
tist and  the  Messiah.  Then,  if  not  sooner,  the  holy 
brotherhood,  the  family  unity  and  fraternal  sympathy  of 
man  with  man  should  begin  to  be  restored.  Were  it  oth- 
erwise, the  earth  itself  would  be  smitten  with  a  curse! 

The  tone  of  these  closing  prophecies  conveys  the  im- 
pression that  the  reformation  in  the  times  of  Ezra  and 
Nehemiali  must  have  been  either  superficial  in  its  char- 
acter, limited  in  extent,  or  brief  in  duration — the  too  com- 
mon description,  alas  !  of  both  religious  and  political  re- 
formations in  our  world,  hitherto.  If,  as  is  commonlj'- 
supposed,  the  prophet  Zechariah  is  the  person  alluded  to 
by  our  Savior  as  having  been  slain  "between  the  temple 
and  the  altar,"  the  corruption  of  the  nation  or  of  a  leading 
portion  of  it,  must  have  made  rapid  and  fearful  strides. 

And  yet  the  reality  and  importance  of  the  reformation 
are  not  to  be  denied,  nor  its  influence  undervalued.  In 
all  great  public  reformations,  political  or  religious,  only  a 
small  portion  of  the  people  have  been  efTectually  and  per- 
manently reformed.  The  masses  have  soon  relapsed, 
and  in  many  instances,  ripened  for  utter  destruction.  The 
scenes  of  the  Pentecost  did  not  save  the  Jewish  nation, 
nor  prevent  the  impending  destruction  of  Jerusalem. 
But  the  beneficial  effects  of  such  reformations  are  never 
lost  ;  they  are  perpetuated,  to  the  end  of  time  !  The 
Pentecost  was  an  essential  link  in  the  chain  of  events 
that  sent  Christianity  to  the  ends  of  the  earth,  preserving 

it  to  the  present  day,  and  to  all  coming  ag€S.    Just  so  the 

13 


278  DEMOCRACY  OF  CHRISTIANITY. 

reformation  in  the  times  of  Zerubbabel  and  Joshua,  Ezra 
and  Nehemiah,  constituted  an  essential  means  for  consol- 
idating the  remnant  of  Judah,  and  preserving  for  four 
hundred  years  among  them,  to  some  extent,  the  knowl- 
edge and  worship  of  the  true  God,  the  recognized  com- 
mon brotherhood  and  equality  of  man.  Without  this,  the 
way  would  not  have  been  prepared  for  the  appearance  of 
John  the  Baptist  and  the  Messiah.  There  v/ould  have 
been  no  community  in  a  position  to  enter  into  the  spirit 
of  their  mission,  or  to  appreciate  their  teachmgs.  With- 
out that  reformation,  there  had  been  no  Pentecost,  no  dif- 
fusion among  the  nations  of  such  a  religion  as  that  of  Je- 
sus, nor  of  the  spirit  of  universal  brotherhood  which  it 
breathes  and  inculcates.  Our  Saxon  and  Anglo-Saxon 
nations,  for  aught  we  know,  might  have  been  worship- 
pers of  Woden  and  Thor,  or  have  only  exchanged  them 
for  the  gods  of  the  Greeks  and  Eomans.  To  profit  by 
the  study  of  history  we  must  notice  the  succession  and 
connexion  of  moral  cause  and  effect,  and  recognize  the 
Providence  of  God  in  the  arrangement  and  disposition  of 
them.  In  guiding  the  remnant  of  Judah  that  went  up 
from  Babylon,  God  had  His  eye,  among  other  things,  to 
the  ultimate  establishment  of  democratic  institutions,  in 
all  the  earth. 

And  the  discipline  the  Jews  were  placed  under  in  Baby- 
lon, had  much  to  do  with  the  reformation  of  the  restored 
remnant  at  Jerusalem.  God  had  permitted  their  captivi- 
ty as  a  punishment  of  their  prevalent  sins  :  hero  wor- 
ship, king  worship,  image  worship,  and  the  oppressions 
and  violations  of  common  brotherhood  and  fraternity  that 
were  naturally  connected  with  them.  Their  ancestors 
had  rebelled  against  Jehovah  in  abjuring  the  common- 
wealth, and  desiring  a  king.  Under  their  own  kings  thev 
had  suffered  long  for  their  folly.  Under  the  kings  of 
Babylon  they  had  suffered  still  farther,  and  they  had  seen 
somewhat  of  the  connexion  between  image-worship — an- 
other of  their  besetting  sins — with  this  oppressive  auto- 


DEMOCRACY   OF  CHRISTIANITY.  279 

cratic  power.  How  precious  to  such  of  them  as  had  the 
spirit  of  hurnanity  and  piety  remaining  in  them,  must 
have  been  the  restored  worship  of  their  Common  Father, 
and  the  restored  usages  and  privileges  of  the  Mosaic 
commonwealth!  It  was  like  a  second  exodus  out  of  Egypt. 
The  tendency  and  to  a  great  extent  the  effect  was  to  asso- 
ciate in  their  own  minds  the  abominations  of  heathenism 
and  its  image-worship  with  the  despotism  from  which,  in 
a  good  degree,  they  had  escaped — though  as  tributaries 
to  the  distant  Persian  monarch,  the  rod  was  suspend- 
ed over  them  stilJ,  and  they  felt  some  of  its  stings. 

One  permanent  eflcct  of  the  captivity  and  of  the;  subse- 
quent reformation  may  be  specified.  However  superficial, 
however  limited,  however  transient,  in  some  respects,  may 
have  been  ihat  reformation,  it  divorced  them  as  a  people, 
thenceforward  and  perpetually,  even  down  to  the  present 
day,  f  om  the  image-worship  to  which  until  the  captivity 
in  Babylon  they  had  been  so  insanely  inclined.  Whatever 
else  may  be  charged  upon  the  Jews  from  the  time  of  Ne- 
hemiah  to  the  lime  of  Christ,  and  from  the  dawn  of  the 
Christian  era  to  the  present  hour,  there  is  one  charge  from 
which  they  must  be  exempted.  The  worship  of  images  or  of 
a  plurality  of  gods  has  not  been  among  their  national  crimes. 
Theoretically,  at  least,  they  have  constantly  affirmed  and 
maintained  the  existence  of  one  only  living  and  true  God. 
On  this  radical  point  of  theology  they  have  been  and  they 
still  are  God's  witnesses  in  the  most  idolatrous  nations 
whither  they  have  been  scattered,  and  in  the  darkest 
times,  even  when  all  the  nations  called  Christian  have  been 
over-run  with  image-worship  and  the  superstitious  vener- 
ation of  saints.  Were  it  only  that  they  might  be  qualified 
for  this  important  service,  the  discipline  of  the  captivity, 
the  reproofs  of  Ezekiel,  and  the  reformatory  efforts  of 
Ezra,  Nchemiuh,  Haggai,  Zechariah,  and  Malachi,  with 
the  previous  labors  of  Zerubbabel  and  Joshua,  were  not 
bestowed  upon  the  little  remnant  of  Judah  in  vain. 

This  fact  of  the  permanent  div(ircc  of  the  Jews,  at    this 


280  DEMOCRACY  OF  CHRlSTlANlTr. 

period,  from  the  worship  of  images,  has  been  commonly 
noticed,  though  the  philosophy  of  the  process  that  pro- 
duced the  effect  has  been  little  pondered.  And  another 
important  fact  intimately  connected  with  it,  has  perhaps 
wholly  escaped  observation.  The  connexion  between 
image  worship,  king  worship,  and  hero  worship,  already 
insisted  on,  if  it  be  founded  in  nature  and  in  fact,  should 
lead  us  to  anticipate  a  decline  of  either  one  or  two  of 
them  when  the  other  was  displaced,  if  image  worship 
was  destroyed,  the  warship  of  kings  and  chieftains  would 
proportionately  abate.  This  effect  of  our  Protestant  Re- 
formation is  too  palpable  to  be  overlooked.  The  same 
thing  begins  to  be  witnessed  at  the  Sandwich  islands,  as 
it  has  been  wherever  a  religion  hostile  to  the  use  of  ima- 
ges has  been  introduced,  and  an  instinctive  sagacious 
foresight  of  this  is  one  grand  reason  why  such  a  religion 
is  commonly  opposed  by  the  conservatists  of  autocratic 
power.  Mohammedanism  may  seem  to  furnish  an  excep- 
tion, but  that  religion  has  attractives  for  sensualists  pe- 
culiarly its  own  ;  its  founder,  a  military  chieftain,  is  al- 
most reverenced  as  a  god,  and  the  absence  of  idolatry  may 
be  rather  a  seeming  fact  than  a  real  one.  If  images  were 
displaced  by  Mohammed,  can  it  be  said  that  the  worship 
of  the  common  Father  of  all  men  was  restored  1  After 
ail,  it  remains  to  be  seen  whether  the  theism  of  Moham- 
med, even  as  it  is,  has  not  introduced  an  element  adverse 
to  the  extreme  of  autocratic  power.  Do  the  iMohamme- 
dan  monarchs  ^eign  as  absolutely  and  as  securely  as  oth- 
er eastern  kings  ?  Remote  tendencies,  amid  counteract- 
ing causes  are  not  developed  in  a  day.  The  general  facts 
indicate  the  principles  involved.  Our  theory,  if  it  be  cor- 
rect, would  lead  us  to  expect  of  the  remnant  of  Judah,  di- 
vorced from  the  worship  of  images,  that  they  would  less 
tenaciously  cherish  the  admiration  of  heroes  and  the  de- 
sire of  kings.  The  feeling  might  not  be  entirely  eradica- 
ted, as  the  displacing  of  a  branch  or  even  the  trunk  might 
not  at  once  destroy  the  root.     To  this  theory  the  facts 


DEMOCRACY  OF  ClIIUSTIANTV.  281 

of  the  case  seem  to  conform.  The  inspired  Record  tells 
lis  of  no  repetition  of  the  revolt  witnessed  in  the  times  of 
Samuel — of  no  clamorous  repudiation  of  the  common- 
wealth, for  the  sake  of  having  a  gorgeous  king.  Their 
own  kinsfs  and  those  of  the  Chaldeans  and  Persians — like 
the  feast  of  quails  their  fathers  lusted  after — produced  a 
surfeit,  and  sufTiced  them,  at  least  for  a  season,  and  during 
the  period  covered  by  the  Old  Testament  history,  nearly 
one  hundred  years.  Whether  any  counter-indications  of 
it  may  have  appeared  iti  later  times,  we  leave  for  consid- 
eration in  the  proper  place. 


CHAPTER  XXL 


OF  THE  HEBREW  PROPHECIES  BEFORE  THE  ASSYRIAN  AND  CHAL- 
DEAN CONQUESTS,  AND  IN  REFERENCE  TO  THOSE  EVENTS. 

An  examination  of  the  Hebrew  prophets,  as  was  proposed, 
may  afford  us  some  additional  light  on  the  moral  and  political 
history  of  Israel  and  Judah,  of  which  we  have  already  been 
tracing  a  few  outlines.  The  moral  causes  of  the  overthrow  of 
those  kingdoms — the  particular  sins  on  account  of  which  God 
gave  them  up  into  the  hands  of  their  enemies — will  constitute 
an  important  branch  of  the  inquiry.  And  if  it  shall  appear 
that  their  violations  of  the  fundamental  principles  of  democratic 
equality,  their  disregard  of  human  rights,  their  contempt  and 
disuse  of  the  judicial  arrangements  God  instituted  for  the  pro- 
tection of  the  wronged,  together  with  the  servility  of  the  peo- 
ple, the  despotism  of  their  rulers,  and  the  unrestrained  oppres- 
sion of  tli' poorer  classes  by  the  wealthier,  were  among  the 
prominent  causes  of  their  overthrow,  the  chief  provocations  on 
account  of  which  God  withdrew  from  them  His  protection  and 
favor,  then  we  shall  claim  that  the  purposes  of  God,  His  provi- 


282  DEMOGRAOY  OF  OIIRISTIANITT. 

dential  arrangements,  and  the  laws  of  moral  cause  and  effect 
by  •which  He  governs  the  nations,  bear  testimony  to  I  lis  re- 
gard for  the  fundamental  principles  of  democrac}^  and  His  hatred 
of  whatever  is  in  opposition  to  them — that  this,  at  least,  is  the 
testimony  of  the  Hebrew  Scriptures,  and  that  the  Jehovah  they 
recognize  is  thus  characterized  in  their  pages. 

The  historians  already  cited  have  left  on  record  some  few 
testimonies  on  this  point  which  we  have  noticed,  and  the  gen- 
eral scope  of  the  history  looks  in  the  same  direction.  B  ut  we  are  to 
inquire  now  of  the  inspired  prophets  who  were  raised  up  for 
the  very  purpose  of  warning  the  people  and  their  rulers  before- 
hand, and  while  the  moral  causes  of  the  final  result  were  in 
progress,  showing  them  the  consequences  of  their  course  if  per- 
sisted in,  and  predicting  the  very  results  which  afterwards 
took  place.  "We  shall  have  to  do  chiefly  with  the  prophets  who 
wrote  before  the  Babylonian  captivity,  yet  some  who  came  af- 
terwards have  alluded  so  directly  to  the  topic  of  our  inquiry, 
and  their  testimony  is  so  explicit,  that  a  citation  of  them  will 
be  equally  in  point. 

Zeoiiariatt,  who  wrote  after  the  return  of  the  captives  to  Jera- 
salem,  and  whose  testimony  in  another  direction  has  already  been 
quoted,  has  a  most  remarkable  paragraph  direct  to  the  point  of 
our  present  inquir}^  Addressing  himself  to  the  remnant  of  Judah 
then  restored  to  their  own  land,  he  bids  them  recall  the  admo- 
nitions of  the  "  former  prophets,"  and  mark  how  the  refusal  of 
their  fathers  to  heed  them  procured  the  calamities  they  had 
suffered. 

"  Should  ye  not  hear  the  words  which  the  Lord  hath  cried 
by  the  former  prophets,  when  Jerusalem  was  inhabited  and  in 
prosperity,  and  the  cities  thereof  round  about  her,  when  men 
inhabited  the  south  and  the  plain  ?  And  the  word  of  the 
Lord  came  unto  Zechariah,  saying,  *  *  Execute  true  judg- 
ment^ and  show  mercy  and  compassion  every  man  to  his  bro- 
ther: and  oppress  not  the  widow,  nor  the  fatherless,  the  stran- 
ger, nor  the  poor,  and  let  none  of  you  imagine  evil  against  his 
brother  in  your  heart.  But  they  refused  to  hearken,  and  pull- 
ed away  the  shoulder,  and  stopped  their  ears  that  they  should 
not  hear.  Yea,  they  made  their  heart  as  an  adamant-stone, 
lest  they  should  hear  the  law,  and  the  words  which  the  Lord 


DEMOCRACY    OF    CHRISTIANITY.  283 

of  hosts  hath  sent  in  His  spirit  by  the  former  prophets ;  there- 
fore came  a  great  wrath  from  the  Lord  of  hosts.  Therefore  it 
is  come  to  pass,  that  as  He  cried,  and  they  would  not  hear,  so 
they  cried,  and  I  would  not  hear,  saitli  the  Lord  of  hosts;  but 
1  scattered  them  with  a  whirlwind  among  all  the  nations  whom 
they  knew  not;  thus  the  land  was  desolate  after  them,  that  no 
man  passed  through  nor  returned ;  for  they  laid  the  pleasant 
land  desolate." — Zech.  vii.  7-14. 

We  will  next  ascertain  the  grounds  on  which  Zechariah 
made  these  statements  concerning  "  the  words  wdiich  the  Lord 
had  cried  by  the  former  prophets." 

Isaiah  flourished  and  prophesied  during  the  reigns  of  "  Uzzi- 
ah,  Jotham,  Ahaz,  and  Hezekiah,  kings  of  Judah."  All  these 
except  Ahaz  are  reckoned  among  the  good  kings  of  Judah,  and 
Hezekiah  among  the  best  of  them ;  yet  the  language  of  Isaiah 
during,  some  portions  of  this  period  is  very  remarkable,  and 
conveys  to  us  vivid  pictures  of  a  nation  exceedingly  corrupt  and 
on  the  very  verge  of  destruction.  The  first  chapter  may  be 
taken  as  a  specimen.  "  It  may  be  considered,"  says  Scott, "  as 
an  introduction  prefixed  to  the  subsequent  prophecies.  It  is 
thought  that  this  was  not  Isaiah's  first  vision,  though  placed 
as  an  introduction  to  the  rest."  Some  commentators  have 
dated  this  chapter  in  the  beginning  of  the  reign  of  Ahaz,  or 
at  the  close  of  Jotham's  reign. 

"  Hear,  O  heavens,  and  giv^e  ear  0  earth,  for  the  Lord  hath 
spoken.  I  have  nourished  and  brought  up  children  and  they 
have  rebelled  against  me.  The  ox  knoweth  his  owner  and  the 
ass  his  master's  crib,  but  Israel  doth  not  know,  my  people  doth 
not  consider.  Ah !  sinful  nation,  a  people  laden  with  iniquity, 
a  seed  of  evil  doers,  children  that  are  corrupters!  they  have 
forsaken  the  Lord,  they  have  provoked  the  Holy  One  of  Israel 
unto  anger,  they  are  gone  away  backward.  Why  should  ye 
be  stricken  any  more  ?  Ye  will  revolt  more  and  more.  The 
whole  head  is  sick  and  the  whole  heart  faint.  From  the  sole 
of  the  foot  even  unto  the  head  there  is  no  soundness  in  it,  but 
wounds  and  bruises,  and  putrifying  sores;  they  have  not  been 
closed,  neither  bound  up,  neither  mollified  with  ointment." — 
Isa.  i.  2-6. 

In  what  portion  of  Scripture,  it  might  be  asked,  can  we  find 
a  more  glowing  picture  of  degeneracy  and  moral  corruption  ? 
Even  to  this  day,  the  preacher  who  has  occasion  to  describe 


284  DEMOCRACY  OF  CHRISTIANITY. 

the  depths  of  human  depravity,  makes  free  use  of  the  express- 
ions just  cited— nay,  the  theological  proof-texts  on  that  topic  will 
commonly  be  found  to  include  the  closing  sentence  above  quo- 
ted. The  prophet,  or  rather  the  spirit  of  prophecy  speaking 
by  him,  must  have  had  in  mind  some  of  the  most  signal  speci- 
mens of  flagrant  wickedness.  But  listen,  further,  and  notice 
the  terrible  denunciations  with  which  this  picture  is  followed. 
Either  in  description  of  the  desolations  even  then  clusterino- 
around  him,  or  were  probably,  in  prophetic  vision  of  scenes 
yet  future,  but  in  the  bold  style  of  prophetic  poetry  announced 
as  already  present,  the  bard  exclaims : 

"Your  country?  Desolate!  Your  cities?  Burned  with 
fire !  Your  land  ?  Strangers  have  devoured  it,  in  your  pres- 
ence, and  desolate,  as  overthrown  by  strangers.*  And  the 
daughter  of  Zion  is  left  as  a  cottage  in  a  vineyard,  as  a  lodge 
in  a  garden  of  cucumbers,  as  a  beseiged  city.  Except  the  Lord 
of  hosts  had  left  unto  us  a  very  small  remnant,  we  should  have 
been  as  Sodom  and  we  should  have  been  like  unto  Gomorrah." 
— V.  7-9. 

Ten  righteous  persons  would  have  saved  those  devoted  cities, 
and  Isaiah  intimates  that  a  "  very  small  remnant  "  of  righteous 
persons  had  preserved  Judah  and  Jerusalem  from  a  similar  or 
equally  terrible  overthrow. 

"  From  the  mention  of  Sodom  and  Gomorrah,  the  prophet 
took  occasion,  with  a  holy  indignation,  to  address  the  rulers  of 
Judah  under  the  title  of  rulers  of  Sodom,  and  the  citizens  of 
Jerusalem  as  inhabitants  of  Gomorrah." — Scott. 

"  Hear  the  word  of  the  Lord,  ye  rulers  of  Sodom;  give  ear 
im to  the  law  of  our  God,  ye  people  of  Gomorrah!  To  what 
purpose  is  the  multitude  of  your  sacrifices  unto  me,  saith  the 
Lord.  I  am  full  of  the  burnt-offerings  of  rams  and  of 
the  fat  of  fed  beasts,  and  I  delight  not  in  the  blood  of  bullocks, 
or  of  lambs,  or  of  he-goats.  When  ye  come  to  appear  before 
me,  w^ho  hath  required  this  at  your  hands,  to  tread  my  courts? 
Bring  no  more  vain  oblations,  'incense  is  an  abomination  unto 
me:  the  new  moons,  and  sabbaths,  and  calling  of  asscmbhes  I 
can  not  away  Avith.  It  is  iniquity,  even  the  solemn  meetino-. 
Your  new  moons  and  your  appointed  feasts,  my   soul   hateth ; 

*  From  these  gonfences  we  have  dropped  tho  word  •' j?,*'  supplied  rc- 
pealetlly  by  the  irnnslalors,  and  iniiicaiinj,'  ihe  present  len^c,  but  not  f'ui  nd 
in  the  oriiriiial.  The  forcible  st\le  of  tl.e  pretry  and  the  Jlvict  3«eanin<'' 
ol  the  writer  are  belttr  pre.-erved  by  llie  omission. 


DEMOCRACY  01'   CIlRISTIANirV*  '286 

tliey  ^ire  a  trouble  unto  me ;  I  am  ^veary  to  bear  them.  And 
when  ye  spread  forth  your  hands,  I  Avill  hide  mine  eyes  from 
vou;  yea,  when  ye  make  many  prayers  I  will  not  hear." — v. 
10-15. 

How  deeply  must  Jehovah  have  been  disgusted  with  His 
professed  people,  when  He  employed  language  like  this — when 
He  characterized  them  as  equal  in  guilt  to  the  rulei-s  of  Sodom 
and  the  people  of  Gomorah — when  He  spurned  their  religious 
devotions,  and  demanded  what  they  could  have  to  do  in  His 
temple. 

No  mere  incidental  or  venial  offences  could  have  given  occa- 
sion for  such  language ;  and  it  is  evident  that  the  delinquency 
did  not  consist  in  the  neglect  of  the  institutions  of  religion  and 
the  outward  forms  of  devotion.  In  these  they  were  abundant, 
even  to  the  wearying  of  Jehovah  himself.  AVhat  could  their 
transgression  have  been— in  what  did  their  iniquity  consist? 
Let  us  read  on : 

"  Your  hands  are  full  of  blood.  Wash  yon,  make  you  clean. 
Put  away  the  evil  of  your  doings  from  before  mine  eyes. 
Cease  to  do  evil.     Learn  to  do  v/e!l." — v.  15-17. 

Here  wc  begin  to  get  some  light  upon  the  preceding  para- 
graphs. The  rulers  and  the  people  were  charged  with  blood 
guiltiness.  They  were  murderous  in  their  characters,  and  in  their 
doinos.  A  very  serious  charge  to  be  brought  against  so  reli- 
gious a  community,  so  respectable  a  body  of  rulers.  By  what 
specifications  could  so  heavy  a  charge  be  sustained  ?  A  few 
words  further  from  the  prophet  will  inform  us. 

"  Seek  judgment,  relieve  the  oppressed,  judge  the  father- 
less, plead  for  the  widow.  Come  now  and  let  us  reason  to- 
gether, saith  the  Lord:  though  your  sins  be  as  scarlet  they 
Siall  be  white  as  snow,  thougti  they  be  red  like  crimson  they 
shall  be  as  wool.  If  ye  be  willing  and  obedient,  ye  shall  eat 
the  good  of  the  land:  but  if  ye  refuse  and  rebel,  ye  shall  be 
devoured  Avith  the  sword,  for  the  mouth  of  the  Lord  hath  spo- 
ken it."— r.  17-20. 

The  national  judiciary,  as  appointed  by  Moses,  had  fallen  into 
disuse,  or  had  become  perverted,  so  that  the  ends  of  public 
justice  were  not  reached.  Either  the  people,  under  the  mon- 
archy, had  suffered  the  appointing  power  to  pass  out  of  their 

13* 


286  DEMOCRACY  OF  dURlStlANITT. 

hands  into  tliose  of  the  king  or  his  court,  or  they  had  elected 
unjust  judges,  or  those  appointed  by  the  king  or  his  court 
Avere  unsuitable  persons.  In  the  community  were  men  of  in- 
fluence, of  capita],  of  power,  who  took  advantage  of  the  poor 
or  of  those  dependant  on  them  to  oppress  and  defraud  them; 
and  they  found  no  redress.  Perhaps  there  were  robberies, 
thefts,  murders,  riots,  and  acts  of  violence  which  were  not  pun- 
ished or  restrained.  The  rulers  were  either  remiss  or  wield^ 
ed  their  powers  on  the  side  of  the  oppressor.  The  mass  of  the 
people  were  indifferent  spectators,  neglecting  to  remonstrate 
against  this  injustice,  and  permitting  their  rulers  to  abuse 
their  high  trust,  yet  yielding  to  them  their  vohmtary  homage 
and  support.  They  were  therefore  like  the  people  of  Sodom 
and  Gomorrah,  one  of  whose  crying  sins  was  that  they  "  did 
not  strengthen  the  hands  of  the  poor  and  needy.'^  They  did 
not  "  seek  judgment"  They  did  not  provide  for  the  execu- 
tion of  justice  between  man  and  man.  They  did  not  "  reheve 
the  oppressed;"  they  did  not  "judge  the  fatherless;"  nor 
"  plead  for  the  widow."  And  therefore  God  loathed  all  their 
religious  services,  declarino-  that  their  hands  were  full  of  blood. 
At  the  same  time  He  declared  that  if  they  would  cleanse 
themselves  from  these  iniquities,  if  they  would  discharge  these 
important  duties,  their  sins  sliould  be  forgiven  and  they  should 
be  restored  to  the  divine  favor.  If  obedient  to  this  message^ 
they  should  be  preserved  in  the  land,  and  enjoy  its  fruits,  if 
rebellious,  they  should  be  devoured  with  the  sword. 

All  this  lies  on  the  face  of  these  paragraphs  taken  in  con- 
nexion with  the  history.  And  it  implies  that  the  people  were 
held  responsible  for  the  political  and  judicial  character  of  the 
government  they  lived  under  and  sustained !  God  looked  to 
them,  and  would  hold  them  accountable  for  the  neglect  or  for 
the  mal-adrainistration  of  their  rulers.  And  the  neglect  to 
provide  and  administer  a  just  government,  a  righteous  judi- 
ciary, was  among  the  most  heinous  sins  of  which  the  commu- 
nity could  be  guilty.  If  this  be  not  the  meaning,  what  intelli- 
gible construction  can  be  put  upon  the  passage?  The  least 
that  can  be  said  is  that  the  people  were  held  guilty  for  not 


BEMOCRACY  OF  CHRISTIAN'ITV.  28? 

remonstrating  against  tliis  injustice,  and  for  not  seettng  by  all 
lawful  means  in  their  power,  to  restore  and  mamtam  the  ad- 
ministration of  justice.  And  this  includes  the  sentunent  that 
God  regards  with  marked  abhorrence  the  violation  of  inalien- 
able human  rights. 

The  construction  we   have  put  upon  the  languag-e  of  the 
prophet,  is  fortified  by  a  still  further  quotation 

"How  is  the  faithful  city  become  an  harlot!  it  was  full  of 
iudome  t,  ri..-hteousness  lodged  in  it,  but  now  murderers. 
ThvXr  las  become  dross:  thy  wine  mi.ed  with  water. 
T  i  p  in  es  are  rebellious  and  companions  of  thieves;  every 
one  loveth  o-itts,  and  followcth  after  rewards,  they  judge  not 
the  fathe  le'^s;  neither  doth  the  cause  of  the  widow  come  unto 
t  em  Therefore  thus  saith  the  Lord,  the  Lord  of  hosts,  the 
•  w  ,  One  of  Israel  Ah!  I  will  ease  me  of  my  adversaries 
nuohty  One  of  ^^  '^^J  f '^^^^i^^,  A„d  1  will  turn  my  hand 
and    aveno^e  me  oi   mine   ciit^un^^-     -^  - .  ,  i 

unonthce°  and  will  purely  purge  away  thy  dross,  and  take 
awavaUthy  tin.  And  I  will  restore  thy  jud-^es  as  at  the 
fusfandZ  counsellors  as  at  the  beginning;  afterward  thou 
.halt  be  called  the  city  of  righteousness,  the  faithful  city, 
aon  shall  be  redeemed  with  judgment  and  her  converts  with 
rio-hteousness."— 0.  21-27. 

The  political  and  judicial  nature  of  the  oflences  reproved 
are  here  placed  beyond  question.     The  rulers  are  charged  with 
bribery   and  companionship   with  the  criminals  they  ought  to 
have  punished,  the  wealthy  oppressors  and  extortioners  who 
ground  the  faces  of  the  poor.     The  fatherless,  or  those  who 
had  none  to  stand  up  for  their  rights,  found  no  protection  from 
their  courts  of  justice,  and  the  widow,  who  had  -  nch  gifts  to 
bestow,  could  obtain  no  favorable  hearing  before  them.     The 
law,  as  administered  by  them,  was  but  a  weapon  in  the  hands 
of  the  rich,  but  was  too  expensive  an  instrument  tob^neh  the 
poor       Alas!  How  many  civilized  communities,  and  ,ealous 
L  the  Jews  were,  in  their   religious  observances    must  plead 
guilty  U>  the  same  charges!       Vet  notwithstauding  the  sub- 
version of  the  commonwealth,  and  the  consequent  assumption 
of  political  power  by  the  monarchy,  ages  before   /,.  pcopU 
were  still  held  responsible  for  those  abuses  which  they  tacitly 
consented,   and  should  be  severely  pun.slied  on  account  of 
them     Then,  after  this  purifying  process,  the  judiciary  shoiUd 


288  DK.»10CUACY    OF    CHRISTIANITV, 

be  restored  "  at  the  first"  and  iudo-es  as  "  at  tlie  beo-iimino-'' 
(in  the  times  of  the  Mosaic  commonwealth)  and  Jerusalem 
should  become  the  city  of  Righteousness.  A  manifest  pre- 
diction of  the  captivity  in  Babylon  and  of  the  restoration  and 
reformation  that  succeeded  it.  The  proceedings  of  Xehemiah 
and  of  the  popular  assembly,  against  Avealthy  and  princely  op- 
pressors, constituted  a  signal  fulfilment  of  the  closing  predic- 
tion. 

We  are  not  to  infer  that  these  violations  of  the  principle  of 
democracy  were  the  only  sins  of  which  the  rulers  and  people 
of  Judah  were  guilty  at  this  period.  The  very  next  chapter 
contains  reproofs  of  their  idolatrous  and  image  worship,  in 
connexion  with  the  manifestations  of  aristocracy  or  "  haughti- 
ness of  men."  The  closing  part  of  the  first  chapter,  indeed, 
introduces  this  train  of  thought. 

The   "  destruction  of  the  transgressors"  on   the  invasion  of 

the   Chaldeans,   and  the   conquest  of  Judea   and  Jerusalem, 

would  make  the  people  ''  ashamed  of  the  oaks  they  they  had 

desired,   and   confounded  for  the  gardens  they   had   chosen." 

This  language  might  refer  to  their  delight  in   the   groves  or 

gardens  of  their  idolatrous  worship,  or  to  their  almost  adoring 

confidence   and  trust  in   their  oppressive  kings  under  whose 

shadow  they  vainly  expected  security.     The  two  ideas  are  so 

nearly  related  that  one   form  of  expression   might  suffice  for 

them  both.     In  the  second  chapter,  which  opens  with  a  vie?v 

of  the  better  times  of  the  Messiah,  it  is  predicted  that  "the  lofty 

looks  of  man  shall  be   humbled,   and   the  haughtiness  of  men 

shall  be  bowed  down,  and  the  Lord  alone  shall  be  exalted  in 

that  day."     After  graphic   and  highly  poetic   descriptions  of 

the  principal  objects,  emblems,  and  instruments  ©f  autocratic 

ambition  and  power,  declaring  that  "  the  day  of  the  Lord  shall 

be  upon  them"   to  bring  them  low — ''  upon  all  the  cedars  of 

Lebanon  that  are  high  and  lifted  up,  and  upon  all  the  oaks  of 

Bashan" — high  mountains,   and  towers,  and  fenced  walis,  and 

ships  of  Tarshish,  and  exquisite   specimens  of  luxurv  and  art, 

the  sentence  above  quoted  is  again  repeated.     Then  follows 

this  declaration:  **  And  the   idols  he  shall  utterly   abolish." 


IZXOCliCY  OF  CHilSTLLNlTT-  28S 

Ther  shaii  -go  inio  ihe  h  !es  of  ihe  rods,  and  into  cares 
of  the  earth.*'  Tbej  shall  be  ca«  "  to  ihe  wfAes  acd  lo  the 
bats*'-*"  for  the  fear  of  the  Lord.  2nd  fcr  ihe  gicry  (K  Hb 
majestr/'  The  chapter  clones  wiih — -"  Ceas^  ve  firom  ««i 
whose  breaih  is  in  his  nostrils,  for  wherein  is  he  to  be  accoimt- 
ed  of?*'  Thus  are  ideniined  the  ciwiin^  alwiitioo  of  idoiatr; 
and  of  the  han^hsiness  oi  men — A  imige  worship  aad  of  aris- 

tocracT of  the  id.-Is  and  of  the  emblems  and  imj^emeiiLE  :i 

a:ii.;"Crauc  swav. 

So  that,  while  the  pr>phet  did  ii^Dt  overlook  or  forget  or  jut- 
dente  the  aboodnaiioiis  of  iaiage  worshq)  in  Jerusakm  and 
Jvdah,  at  the  tone  in  wkidi  he  wrc4e,  he  jwoceeded  with  seru- 
pidous  propiieij-  and  phiksophieal  accoracv  as  well  as  poetic 
taste,  when  he  olaced  the  conneeied  335  of  opptesaoo,  serril- 
itr,  inhamaniiy,  and  ki^  worship  in  the  foreground  of  ihe 
picture,  in  the  opening  of  his  messages,  in  ihe  introdcctim  to 
he  prophecies,  iniroducing  image  worship  afterwards  as  apart 
of  the  draperr  of  the  picture  he  intiuided  to  prsent. 

The  third  chapter  opens  with  predit^cns  of  the  calamities 
ooM^  upon  Jadah  and  JenEafem— the  oppressions  die  people 
vcre  to  smS^  &«n  one  another,  for  the  want  <rf  a  just  gor- 
enment  to  protect  and  restrain  them,     [i  is  this  prcdictiaa 
that  mtrodsces  the  memofmble  dedaratioc  so  often  qTioted, 
but^  sddom  connected  with  tiie  oonteit— -  Say  ve  to  the 
righteous  that  it  shafl  be  well  widi  him.  for  ther  shall  eat  the 
fr^  of  their  domgs.     Wo  nnto  thewkied!  it  shaBbeiH  with 
him.  for  the  rerard  of  hb  hands  shall  be  given  him."— r.  10- 
11.    Thb  general  maxim  was  a  oofoflary  from  the  paitie«kr 
^et  that  the  Hebrew^  when  oppressed  for  the  want  of  aright- 
eoDS  jndiciarT,  were  reaping  the  re  wanl  of  their  hands,  in  foil- 
ing to  proride  such  a  piotectJOQ  for  their  poorer  and  mof«  de- 
feimles  bi^hren,  who  were  thfe  first  TictinK  of  oppreseiaB. 
They  eorid  not  negkct  to  seek  judgment  and  nSere  the  op- 
pressed, without  cxpoecng  ihemselres  to  similar  oppnasiOM  m 
their  tnm.     And  ths  w«5  an  ifinstration  of  the  general  prin- 
ciple that  both  the  righteons  and  the  wicked  mwt  ent  the 
fruit  of  tlKir  own  doinss^    Xext  eo^ss  the  direct  reprorf: 


290  DEMOCRACY  OF  CURlSttANfTYt 

"  The  Lord  Avill  enter  into  judgment  with  the  ancients  of  His 
people  and  the  princes  thereof,  for  ye  have  eaten  up  the  vine- 
yard; the  spoil  of  the  poor  is  in  your  houses.  What  mean  ye, 
that  ye  beat  my  people  to  pieces  and  grind  the  faces  of  the 
poor  ?  saith  the  Lord  God  of  hosts." 

Princely  rapacity,  oppressive  exactions,  fat  salaries,  extortion, 
monopolies,  class  legislations,  inadequate  or  withheld  wages, 
are  here  strongly  denounced.  The  remainder  of  the  chapter 
is  occupied  with  a  vivid  poetic  description  of  the  pride,  the 
vanit}^,  the  ostentation,  the  voluptuousness,  the  artificiality,  the 
frivolity  of  aristocratic  and  fashionable  life— the  national  con- 
comitants and  incentives  of  the  oppressions  and  the  rapacity 
that  had  been  before  described.  The  stretched  forth  neck, 
the  wanton  eye,  the  haughty  air,  the  mincing  step,  the  long 
inventory  of  superfluous  raiment,  of  frivolous  ornaments,  of 
elegant  furniture.  In  terms  of  terrible  irony  the  prophet 
dwells  upon  these,  contrasting  them  with  the  desolations,  the 
carnage,  the  destitution,  attendant  on  the  coming  Chaldean  in- 
vasion, when  the  city,  being  desolate,  should  sit  on  the  ground, 
and  her  gates  should  lament  and  mourn. 

In  calling  upon  the  rulers  and  people  to  repent  of  their  vio- 
lations of  human  rights  and  of  their  neglect  to  defend  and 
maintain  them,  the  prophet  therefore  must  be  considered  as 
calling  upon  them  to  repent  of  all  their  other  transgressions, 
connected  and  identified  as  they  were  in  their  nature  and^heir 
tendencies.  And  in  promising  them  the  divine  forgiveness 
and  favor  on  condition  of  repentance,  the  meaning  must  take 
the  same  comprehensive  scope.  If  they  truly  and  heartily  re- 
pented of  their  more  prominent  sins,  that  same  spirit  of  pen- 
itence would  extend  to  all  other  known  sins.  Oppression,  and 
serviUty  and  pride,  from  their  prominent  position,  their  aggra- 
vated character,  and  generic  form,  as  parents  of  almost  all  oth- 
er sins,  were  proper!}^  singled  out  and  placed  for  the  whole  cat- 
alogue of  sins  represented  by  them.  Being  guilty  of  these  they 
were  substantially  guilty  of  all. 

While,  therefore,  we  do  not  claim  that  violations  of  the  prin- 
ciples of  democracy  constituted  the  only  sin  for  which  the  He- 
brews were  punished  in  Babylon,  we  do  maintain  that  this  sin 


DEMOCRACY  OF  CHRISTIANITY, 


291 


was  so  prominent,  so  heinous,  and  so  generic,  that  God  phiced 
it  at  the  head  of  the  catalogue  of  their  iniquities,  the  representa- 
tive of  all  the  rest.  The  overthrow  of  the  Egyptians,  of  the 
cities  of  the  plain,  and  of  the  antedeluvians,  was  upon  the  same 
principle  and  accompanied  by  similar  divine  declarations,  as  has 
already  been  shown. 

In  the  fifth  chapter  of  this  book  Isaiah  presents  the  same 
subject  in  another  form.  Under  the  parable  of  a  vineyard  he 
exhibits  the  reasonableness  of  tlie  divine  dealings  with  Jerusa- 
lem and  Judah ; 

*' My  well  beloved  hath  a  vineyard  in  a   very  fruitful   hill. 
And  he  fenced  it,  and  gathered  out  the   stones   thereof,    and 
planted  it  with  the  choicest  vine,    and   built   a   tower  m   the 
midst  of  it,  and  also  made  a  wme-press  therein,  and  he  looked 
that  it  should  bring  forth  grapes,  and  it    brought  forth   wild 
grapes.     And  now,  O  inhabitants  of  Jerusalem   and  men  of 
Judah,  judo-e  I  pi^ay  you  betwixt  me  and  my  vineyard.     What 
could  have  been  done  more  to  my  vineyard  that   I   have  not 
done  in  it?     Wherefore,  when  I  looked  that  it  should  bring 
forth  o-rapes,  brought  it  forth  Avild  grapes?      And  now,  go  to, 
I  wilftell  you  what  I  will  do  to  my  vineyard:  I  will  take  away 
the  hedge  thereof,  and  it  shall  be  eaten  up ;   and  break  dovvn 
the  wall  thereof,  and  it  shall  be  tiodden    down.     And    1  wil 
lay  it  waste;  it  shall  not  be  pruned  nor  digged,  but  there  shall 
come  up  briars  and  thorns.     I  will  also    command  the   clouds 
that  ihey  rain   no   I'ain  upon   it.      For  the   vineyard  of  the 
Lord  of  hosts  is  the  house  of  Israel,  and  the  men  of  Judah  His 
pleasant  plant.    And  He  looked  ior  judgment,  but  behold  oppres- 
sion; for  rio-hteousness,  but  behold  a  cry!     Woe  to  them  that 
join  house  to  house,  that  lay  field  to  field,  till  there  be  no  place, 
that  they  may  be  placed  alone  in  the  midst  of  the  earth!     In 
mine  ears,  said  ihe  Lord  of  hosts.  Of  a  truth  many  iiouses  shall 
be  left  desolate,  even  great  and  fair  without  inhabitant.   Yea,  ten 
acres  of  vineyard  shall  yield  one  bath,  and  the  seed  of  an  ho- 
mer shall  yield  an  ephali." 

The  application  of  the  parable  recalls  to  mind  the  planting  of 
the  Hebrew  commonwealth,  the  arrangements  made,  in  the 
institutions  and  code  of  Moses,  for  the  administration  of  justice, 
and  especially  for  preventing  the  accumulation  of  houses  and 
lands  in  the  hands  of  a  few,  and  leaving  a  portion  of  the  in- 
habitants without  shelter  or  inheritance.      The  preservation  of 


292  DEMOCRACY  OF  CHRISTIANITY. 

this  equality,  the  administration  of  this  justice,  Jehovah  had 
regarded  as  a  grand  end  of  the  expensive  outlays  He  had  made 
upon  this  nation.  He  looked  for  these  as  for  the  fruits  of  a 
vineyard.  If  these  ends  could  not  be  reached.  He  did  not  con- 
sider it  an  object  to  preserve  the  nation,  any  more  than  an  hus- 
bandman would  think  it  worth  Avhile  to  preserve  a  vineyard 
that  produced  no  valuable  fruits;  and  therefore  He  would  re- 
move His  protecting  hand,  and  suffer  the  nation  to  be  trodden 
down.  And  those  who  added  house  to  house  till  they  were 
left  alone  as  it  were  in  the  land,  should  leave  their  elegant 
mansions  desolate  and  tenantless  and  their  land  unproductive. 
In  the  Chaldean  invasion  and  the  Babylonian  captivity  these 
scenes  were  in  part  reahzed.  At  the  final  overthrow  of  Jeru- 
salem by  the  Romans,  the  desolation  was  more  complete,  and 
the  Jewish  state  permanently  disbanded. 

The  prophet  proceeds,  in  the  same  chapter,  to  pronounce 
woes  against  the  intemperate,  the  luxurious,  the  riotous,  the 
thouohtless — "miohty  to  drink  wine,  men  of  streno-th  to  min- 
gle  strong  drink" — which  justify  the  wicked  for  rew^ard,  and 
take  away  the  righteousness  of  the  righteous  from  him." 
"  Therefore  my  people  are  gone  into  captivity,  because  they 
have  no  knowledge ;  and  their  honorable  men  are  famished,  and 
their  multitude  dried  up  with  thirst." 

When  violations  of  the  principles  and  established  usages  and 
institutions  of  democracy  are  thus  characterized,  thus  classified, 
thus  placed  at  the  head  of  a  long  count  of  heavy  charges  in- 
cluding intemperance — and  when  such  prophetic  denunciations 
and  providential  retributions  and  chastisements  are  recorded 
as  having  been  visited  upon  them  by  the  God  of  the  Hebrews 
— what  less  can  we  say  than  that,  in  the  estimation  of  such  a 
Being  as  the  Scriptures  here  represent  Him  to  be,  the  prin- 
ciple of  democracy  is  held  to  be  of  inestimable  value  ? 

And  how  can  we  help  seeing  that  the  "  inhabitants  of  Jeru- 
salem and  men  of  Judah,"  mainly,  primarily,  chiefly — and  not 
merely  the  personage  who  happened  to  be  king  over  them  at 
that  period,  and  Avho  is  not  so  much  as  once  mentioned  or  al- 
luded to  in  the  parable — were  held  accountable  to  God  for  the 


DEMOCBACY   OF  CHRISTIANITY.  -93 

administration  of  justice,  for  the  prevention  of  this  unlawful 
monopoly  of  houses  and  lands,  for  the  -uilt  of  which  the  nation 
was  to  be  chastised  ?  If  this  does  not  imply  the  duty  and  the 
consequent  right  of  the  people  to  provide  for  the  administration 
of  justice,  in  what  light  are  we  to  read  the  equity  of  Him  wlio 
thus  requires  this  at  their  hands,  and  thus  threatens  and  pun- 
ishes their  neglect  ?  "  He  looked  for  judgment"— for  just  ju- 
dicial proceedings  against  oppressors.  To  "  the  inhabitants  of 
♦Jerusalem,  the  house  of  Israel,  the  men  of  Judah,"  He  looked 
for  this.  They  were  the  precious  plants  He  had  been  cultiva- 
ting with  so  much  care— from  them  He  expected  the  fruits— 
and  upon  them  He  would  visit  the  just  penalty  of  their  dere- 

lection. 

In  the  tenth  chapter  of  Isaiah  we  have  another  denunciation 
against  political  and  judicial  oppression: 
°''Woe  unto  them  that  decree  unrighteous  decrees,  and  that 
write  orievousness  that  they  have  prescribed.  _  To  turn  aside 
the  needy  from  judoment,  to  take  away  the  right  ot  the  poor 
of  my  people,  that  widows  may  be  my  prey,  and  that  they  may 
rob  the  fatherless.  And  what  will  ye  do  in  the  day  of  visita- 
tion, in  the  desolation  which  shall  come  from  far?  io  whom 
will  ye  flee  for  help;  and  where  will  ye  leave  your  glory  ? 
—V.  1-3. 

The  people— even  the  poor  of  the  people- are  here  recog- 
nized as  having  rights,  which  no  legislative  or  judicial  au- 
thorities may  infringe;  and  for  the  violation  of  them,  in  Judah, 
God  threatened  the  nation  with  the  desolation  that  afterwards 
came  upon  it. 

The  twenty  eighth  of  Isaiah  contains  a  vivid  description  of 
the  corruptions  prevailing  in  both  Samaria  and  Judah,  and  of 
the  devastations  about  to  be  inflicted  upon  them  by  the  Assyr- 
ian and  Chaldean  kings.  Intempernnce  in  high  places,  and 
the  consequent  perversion  of  justice,  are  prominent  topics  of 
reproof  and  expostulation. 

"  Woe  to  the  crown  of  pride,  to  the  drunkards  of  Kphraim, 
whose  glorious  beauty  is  a  fading  flower,  which  are  on  the 
head  ol"  the  fat  valleys  of  them  that  are  overcome  with 
wine.  *  *  The  crown  of  pride,  the  drunkards  of  Ephraira 
shall  be  trodden  under  foot." 


294  DEMOCRACY  OF  CHRISTIANITY* 

The  entire  description  conveys  the  innpression  that 
beastlj^  intemperance  prevailed  in  the  court  of  the  kingof 
Israel,  and  that  even  the  royal  crown  itself  did  not  present 
an  exception  to  the  statement.  Such  was  the  moral  condi- 
tion of  the  ten  tribes,  just  before  their  final  dispersion, 
which  took  place  soon  after  this  prophecy.  Judah  and 
Benjamin,  however,  remained  : 

"In  rhat  day  shall  the  Lord  of  hosts  be  for  a  crown  of 
glory  and  for  a  diadem  of  beauty  unto  the  residue  of  His  • 
people,  and  for  a  spirit  of  judgment  to  him  that  sitteth  in 
judgment,  and  for  strength  to  them  that  turn  the  battle  to 
the  gate." — v.  5-6. 

"At  the  very  time  when  Israel  was  finally  ruined,  Ju- 
dah had  a  transient  return  of  prosperity  under  the  gov- 
ernment of  Kezekiah.  He  trusted  in  God  and  aimed  to 
reform  the  people.  The  Lord  of  hosts  was  the  crown, 
and  honor  and  beauty  of  Hezekiah,  and  of  the  residue  of 
believers  in  Judah;  and  for  thetr  sakes  He  endued  their 
magistrates  and  counsellors  with  the  spirit  of  discernment 
and  equity.'' — Scott. 

"  But  they  also  erred  through  wine,  and  through  strong 
drink  are  out  of  the  way  ;  the  priest  and  the  prophet  have 
erred  through  strong  drink,  they  are  swaMowed  up  of  wine, 
they  are  out  of  the  way  through  strong  drink  ;  they  err 
in  vision,  they  stumble  in  judgment.  For  all  tables  are 
full  of  vomit  and  filthiness,  so  that  there  is  no  place 
clean.'' — v.  7-8. 

"  Even  in  Judah,  after  Hezekiah's  reformation,  iniquity 
was  very  prevalent.  The  Jews,  too,  were  addicted  to  m- 
temperance  ;  and  not  only  the  common  people,  but  like- 
wise both  the  priests  and  prophets  were  given  up  to 
drunkenness  This  swallowed  up  their  judgment  and  con 
science,  so  that  they  taught  false  doctrine,  fell  into  most 
atrocious  errors,  and  decreed  unrighteousness."  "  There 
was,  however,  a  remnant  of  another  character,  and  for 
their  sakes  the  city  was  spared." — Scott. 

"All  that  glory  and  beauty  of  which  men  are  proud, 
will  prove  a  mere  fading  flower,  and  that  affluence  which 
is  considered  a  crown  and  ornament  frequently  tempts  to 
excess,  and  thus  disgraces  its  possessor."  "  The  Lord 
will  abase  all  the  proud,  but  they  who  pride  themselves  in 
wickedness,  will  be  rendered  peculiarly  contemptible." — 
Tbed, 


DEMOCRACY   OF  CHRISTIANITY.  29o 

These  prophetic  sketches  shed  a  gleam  of  light  upon  the  brief 

annals  of  Israel  and  Judah,  which  enables  us  to.  trace  the 
moral  causesofthcirdecline  and  subjugation  with  sufficient 

distinctness.   The  picture  is  no  uncommon  one  ;  it  presents 
itself  towards  the  close  of  the  career  of  almost  every  great 
nation  just  before  it  becomes  extinct.  The  height  of  prosper- 
ity and  pride  becomes  the  precursor  of  speedy  calamity  and 
abasement.  The  most  beastly  vices  cluster  thick  in  the  path- 
way of  autocratic  assumption  and  aristocratic  pnde  ;   or 
if  the  nation  wherein  they  appear  be  a   republic,    all   the 
republican  virtues  wither,  and  the  people  become  incom- 
petent to  the  responsibilities  of  government.     Oppression, 
injustice,  the  perversion  or  extinction   of  the   judiciary 
follows  closely  on  the  heels  of  luxury,  self-indulgence,  se  f- 
exaltation,  and  pride.     The  spirit  of  equity  which   is  the 
love  of  equality,  lives  not  in  the  atmosphere  of  caste  ;  and 
where  the  beastly  vices  prevail  the  love  of  equity  and  de- 
mocratic equality  can  not  co-exist.  ,,■  . 

Throughout  a  large  portion  of  the  prophecies  of  Isaiah, 
are  similar  warnings  and  predictions  interspersed.  The 
thirtieth  and  thirty-first  chapters  contain  reproofs^  of  the 
people  of  Israel  for  their  idolatrous  confidence  in  the  kings 
ofEgypt  for  protection.  .,     ,     r      ,   .1    . 

»  Woe  to  the  rebellious  children,  sai.h  the  Lord,  that 
take  counsel,  but  not  of  me,  that  cover  with  a  covering 
but  not  of  my  spirit,  that  they  may  add  sin  to  sin  :  ihat 
walk  to  go  down  in'to  Egypt,  and  have  not  asked  at  my 
mouth,  to  strengthen  themselves  m  ^^^J'^^S^^l^^Te 
laoh  and  to  trust  in  the  shadow  of  Egypt.  -Lheielore 
shall  the  strength  of  Pharaoh  be  your  shame,  and  the 
trust  in  the  shadow  of  Egypt  your  confusion,  -xxx.  IS. 
This  servility  and  king  worship,  was  very  naturally 
connected  with  oppression. 

..  Wherefore  thus  saith  the  Holy  One  of  Israel,  Because 
ve  despise  this  word,  and  trust  in  oppres.sion  and  |  er- 
verseniss  nnd  stay  thereon  :  Therefore  this  iniquity  shall 
be  o"-o«  a  breach  ready  ,0  fall,  swelling  out  in  a  high 
wall!  whose  breaking  cometh  suddenly  at  an  instant.  - 
lb.  V.  12-13. 


b 


296  DEMOCRACY    OF  CHRISTIANITY. 

Isaiah's  persuasives  to  sanctification,  in  a  variety  of 
particulars,  in  the  fifty-sixth   chapter,    commence  thus: 

"Thus  saith  the  Lord,  keep  ye  judgment  and  do  jus- 
tice, for  my  salvation  is  near  to  come,  and  my  righteous 
to  be  revealed." 

A  well  regulated  judiciary  was  the  first  thing  specified, 
Sabbaths,  sacrifi(ees,  and  the  house  of  prayer  are  men- 
tioned afterwards, 

The  fifty-eighth  chapter  of  this  prophecy  very  neirly 
resembles  the  first. 

"  Cry  aloud  !  Spare  not.  Lift  up  thy  voice  like  a 
trumpet.  Show  my  people  their  transgresssion,  and  the 
house  of  Jacob  their  sins." 

The  prophet  next  notices  their  zealous  and  punctual  reli- 
gious observances  and  devotions.  These,  speaking  in 
the  name  of  God,  he  declares  of  no  value,  and  even  sati- 
rizes them  as  ludicrous, 

"  Behold,  in  the  day  of  your  fasts  ye  find  pleasure  and 
exact  all  your  labors.  *  *  Is  it  such  afasfthat  I  have 
chosen  1  A  day  for  a  man  to  afflict  his  soul  %  Is  it  to 
down  his  head  like  a  bulrush  \  and  to  spread  sackcloth 
and  ashes  under  him  ]  Wilt  thou  call  this  a  fast,  and 
an  acceptable  day  to  the  Lord  V 

He  then  describes  an  acceptable  fast. 

•'  Is  not  this  the  fast  that  1  have  chosen,  to  loose  the 
bands  of  wickedness,  to  undo  the  heavy  burdens,  and  to 
let  the  oppressed  go  free  and  that  ye  break  every  yoke] 
Is  it  not  to  deal  thy  bread  to  the  hungry,  and  that  thou 
bring  the  poor  that  are  cast  out  to  thy  house,  when  thou 
seest  the  naked  that  thou  cover  him,  and  that  thou  hide 
not  thyself  from  thine  own  flesh  1  TAerz.  shall  thy  light 
break  forth  as  the  morning,  and  thine  health  shall  spring 
forth  speedily  ;  and  thy  righteousness  shall  go  before 
thee^  and  the  glory  of  the  Lord  shall  be  thy  reward. 
Then  shalt  thou  call  and  the  Lord  shall  answer  ,*  thou 
shalt  cry,  and  He  shall  say,  Here  I  am.  If  thou  take 
away  from  the  midst  of  thee  the  yoke,  the  putting  forth 
of  the  finger,  the  speaking  of  vanity  ;  and  if  thou  draw 
out  thy  soul  to  the  hungry,  and  satisfy  .the  afflicted  soul, 
then  shall  thy  light  rise  in  obscurity^  and  thy  darkness 
shall  be  as  noon-day,''  &c. 


DEMOCRACY    OF   ClIRISTIANITT.  297 

The  spirit  of  common  brotherhood,  according  to  this 
statement,  had  been  well  nigh  lost,  among  the  people  of 
Judah,  and  the  turning  point  in  their  future  destiny  was 
suspended  upon  the  question  whether  it  could  be  restor- 
ed. But  it  must  be  done  thoroughly,  and  not,  like  their 
hypocritical  fastings,  expend  itself  in  mere  outward  forms. 
Not  only  must  those  under  the  yoke  of  bondage  be  libera- 
ted, but  the  yoke  itselt  must  be  broken,  not  only  broken, 
but  taken  away.  And  the  restoration  of  liberty  was  not 
sufficient.  The  hungry  must  be  fed,  and  the  naked 
clothed.  And  in  doing  this,  they  were  not  to  be  thrust 
into  pens  and  corners  by  themselves.  They  must  be  wel- 
comed to  the  homes  and  firesides  of  their  wealthier  breth- 
ren. And  at  this  arrangement,  no  lip  must  be  curled  up 
in  scorn,  no  finger  pointed  forth  in  derision,  no  tongue 
must  lisp  words  of  foolish  pride. 

Thus,  and  thus  only,  could  the  nation  prosper,  under 
the  smiles  of  the  Jehovah  of  the  Hebrews,  and  His  wor- 
shippers must  govern  themselves  accordingly. 

Having  first  assured  them  of  this,  the  prophetic  mes- 
sage afterwards  adverted  to  a  proper  observance  of  the 
Sabbath.  Pursuing  the  same  train  of  thought  into  the 
next  chapter,  the  prophet  proceeds  ; 

"Behold,  the  Lord's  hand  is  not  short  that  it  cannot 
save,  neither  His  ear  heavy  that  it  cannot  hear.  But 
your  iniquities  have  separated  between  you  and  your 
God,  that  He  will  not  hear,  for  your  hands  are  defiled 
with  bloody  and  your  fingers  with  iniquity,  your  lips  have 
spoken  lies,  your  tongue  hath  uttered  perverseness.  None 
calleth  {ov  justice,  nor  any  pleadeth  for  truth  :  they  trust 
in  vanity  and  speak  lies,  they  conceive  mischief  and  bring 
forth  iniquity.  *  *  Their  works  are  works  of  iniquity, 
and  the  act  of  violence  is  in  their  hands.  Their  feet  run 
to  evil,  and  they  make  haste  to  shed  innocent  blood,  their 
thoughts  are  thoughts  of  iniquity,  wasting  and  destruc- 
tion is  in  their  paths  :  the  way  of  peace  they  know  not, 
and  there  is  no  judgment  in  their  goings,  they  have  made 
them  crooked  paths,  whosoever  goeth  therein  shall  not 
know  peace." 


298  DEMOCRACY  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

This  paragraph,  in  connexion  with  other  portions  of 
the  Old  Testament  Scriptures,  is  very  appropriately  cited 
by  Paul  in  his  letter  to  the  Romans  (Chap.  iv.  15-17,)  in 
illustration  of  the  general  and  deep  depravity  of  mankind, 
but  the  connexion  in  which  it  stands  in  the  book  of 
Isaiah,  identifies  the  picture,  or  the  occasion  of  his  pre- 
senting it,  with  those  violations  of  the  democratic  princi- 
ple of  equality  and  common  brotherhood  which  he  had 
just  described,  in  the  previous  chapter.  Had  the  He- 
brews, in  the  times  of  Hezekiah,  when  he  wrote,  been 
thoroughly  and  heartily  democratic  in  their  sentiments, 
their  affections,  their  conduct,  their  usages,  and  their  in- 
stitutions, such  a  picture  of  them  as  the  prophet  presents 
in  these  two  chapters  could  never  have  been  truthfully 
drawn.  An  anti-democratic  spirit,  Vv'herever  it  is  exhib- 
ited, is  an  exemplification  of  human  wickedness,  accord- 
ing to  the  concurrent  testimony  of  Isaiah  and  Paul. 

In  strains  of  confession  and  lamentation  Isaiah  contin- 
ues to  dwell  upon  this  sin  of  his  countrymen  and  its  in- 
evitable results. 

Therefore  is  judgment  far  from  us,  neither  doth  justice 
overtake  us  ;  we  wait  for  light,  but  behold  obscurity — for 
brightness,  but  we  walk  in  darkness.  We  grope  for  the 
wall  as  the  blind,  and  we  grope  as  if  we  had  no  eyes,  we 
stumble  at  noon-day  as  in  the  night  \  we  are  in  desolate 
places  as  dead  men.  We  roar  all  like  bears,  and  mourn 
sore  like  does,  we  look  for  judgment  but  there  is  none — 
for  salvation,  but  it  is  far  from  us.  For  our  transgressions 
are  multiplied  before  thee,  and  our  sins  testify  against 
us,  for  our  transgressions  are  with  us,  and  as  for  our  ini- 
quities we  know  them.  In  transgressing  and  lying 
against  the  Lord,  and  departing  away  from  our  God, 
speaking  oppression  and  revolt^  conceiving  and  uttering 
from  the  heart  words  of  falsehood.  And  judgment  is 
turned  away  backward,  and  justice  standeth  afar  off,  for 
the  truth  is  fallen  in  the  street,  and  equity  cannot  enter. 
Yea  truth  faileth,  and  he  that  departeth  from  evil  maketh 
himself  a  prey  :  and  the  Lord  saw  it:  and  it  displeased 
Him  that  there  was  no  judgment.  And  He  saw  that  there 
was  no  man,  and  wondered  that  there  was  no  intercessor. 


DEMOCRACY  OF  CHRISTIANITY.  299 

therefore  His  arm  brought  salvation  unto  him,  and  his 
righteousness  it  sustained  him.  For  he  put  on  righteous- 
ness as  a  breastplate,  and  an  helmet  of  salvation  upon  his 
head,  and  he  put  on  the  garments  of  vengeance  for 
clothing",  and  was  clad  with  zeal  as  a  cloak.'' 

As  the  spirit  of  aristocratic  pride  and  oppression  was 
the  crying  sin  of  the  nation,  it  was  not  only  to  be  reproved 
but  deplored  and  confessed.  It  was  to  be  recognized  as 
the  cause  of  the  perplexity,  confusion,  and  darkness  so 
visible  in  the  national  councils,  the  stupidity  and  want  of 
discernment  so  manifest  in  the  community,  amid  the  light 
ot  religious  institutions,  the  noon-day  revelations  of  the 
divine  will  ',  and  that  too,  in  respect  to  topics  and  ques- 
tions the  most  plain  and  self-evident ;  and  while  the  most 
bitter  moanings  and  complaints  were  heard  on  account  of 
the  manifest  and  unavoidable  consequences  of  this  cher- 
ished sin,  which  was  not  hid  from  the  people,  but  was  a 
well  known  and  most  notorious  matter  of  fact  ;  the  sin 
of  "  speaking  oppression" — of  defending  it — of  framing 
excuses  and  apologies  for  it.  The  judiciary,  in  fact,  so 
far  as  its  most  important  uses  were  concerned  had  become 
obsolete.  Justice  stood  aloof  from  the  proceedings  enact- 
ed in  her  name.  Falsehood  prevailed,  till  truth  was  pros- 
trate even  in  the  thoroughfares  of  public  concourse  and 
intelligence,  and  equity  could  find  no  entrance  in  the 
courts  where  law  was  ostensibly  administered.  So  pre- 
dominant and  almost  universal  was  the  control  of  false- 
hood, that  he  who  would  not  harmonize  with  it,  in  his 
political  activities,  was  accounted  a  mad  man,  and  was 
made  a  victim  of  the  injustice  in  which  he  refused  to  par- 
ticipate. The  Lord  saw  and  was  displeased  that  there 
was  no  administration  of  justice.  He  saw  that,  at  length, 
there  was  no  man  left  to  stand  up  erect,  and  breast  the 
current  of  despotism — there  was  no  intercessor  to  plead 
the  cause  of  the  oppressed.  He  therefore  determined  to 
take  the  matter  in  hand  himself,  and  by  a  terrible  over- 
throw of  the  tyrants,  bring  deliverance  to  the  wronged. 
Such  was   the  fact  when  the  conquered  king  and  princes, 


300  DEMOCRACY    OF    CHRISTIANITY. 

and  nobles,  and  rich  men,  and  servile  sycophants,  and  time- 
serving  priesthood  that  had  sustained  them,  were  ejected 
from  their  palaces,  dispossessed  of  their  estates  and  drag- 
ged captive  to  Babylon,  while  the  poor  of  the  land,  so 
long  despoiled  and  oppressed,  were  left  to  cultivate  and 
enjoy  the  vineyards  of  their  banished  oppressors  !  This 
was  not  perhaps  the  first,  as  certainly  it  was  not  the  last 
instance  of  the  kind. 

The  prophecy  has  a  wide  scope  of  application,  infold- 
ing a  principle  perpetually  producing  over  and  over  again 
the  same  general  results,  under  the  all-controlling  and  re- 
tributive providences  of  God  ;  yet  taken  in  connexion  with 
the  record  given  us  in  the  history  already  before  the  rea- 
der, it  tells  us  plainly  enough  why  God  gave  up  the  Jew- 
ish monarchy  into  the  hands  of  the  Chaldean  invader. 
That  monarchy,  originating  in  rebellion  against  God  and 
against  the  democratic  institutions  He  had  provided  for 
them,  had  worked  out,  at  length,  its  legitimate  results  in 
the  perfected  corruption  and  oppression  of  the  entire  com- 
munity. Not  a  man  was  left  to  stand  in  the  breach  for 
God to  plead  for  His  crushed  poor — to  maintain  inalien- 
able human  rights — to  rebuke  and  hold  in  check  the  min- 
ions and  pet  favorites  of  autocratic  power.  The  measure 
of  its  iniquity  was  now  full,  and  the  merciful  storm  of 
retributive  justice  must  needs  burst  upon  its  head,  that 
humanity  might  be  disenthralled— that  a  remnant  might 
be  purified— that  liberty  might  be  in  a  measure  restored 

that  the  way  of  the  Messiah  might   be  prepared — that 

Messiah  of  whose  advent  the  harp  of  Isaiah  discourses 
so  sweetly  in  the  midst  of  these  terrible  predictions — in 
one  word,  that  Christianity  and  Democracy  in  the  tender 
germ  might  be  sheltered,  might  find  a  soil,  might  grow 
up,  might  provide  a  shadow  and  a  refuge  for  the  meek  of 
the  earth. 

Quite  appropriately  was  this  remarkable  portion  of 
Scripture  preceded  and  prefaced  with— "  Cast  ye  up! 
cast  ye  up !  prepare   the  way  !    take    up   the    stumbHng 


DliMOURAOY  OF  CHKISTIA  ^ilTY.  301 

block  out  of  the  way  of  my  people."' — Chap.  Ivii.  14.  How 
else  should  the  way  of  the  Lord  be  prepared  and  the 
stumbling  clock  removed,  but  by  crying  aloud  against 
aristocracy,  and  by  not  sparing  to  reprove  oppression  1 
Quite  appropriately,  too,  is  the  terrible  denunciation  against 
tyrants  followed  with — "  Arise  !  shine  !  for  thy  light  is 
come,  and  the  glory  of  the  Lord  is  risen  upon  thee  !" 
*'  Violence  shall  no  more  be  heard  in  thy  land,  wasting 
nor  destruction  within  thy  borders;  but  thou  shalt  call 
thy  walls  Salvation  and  thy  gates  Praise." — Chap.  Ix. 
1-18,  &c. 

In  a  rising  gradation  the  next  chapter  opens  with  the 
annunciation  of  the  Messiah  : 

"The  Spirit  of  the  Lord  God  is  upon  me,  because  He 
hath  anointed  me  to  preach  good  tidings  to  the  meek.  He 
hath  sent  me  to  bind  up  the  broken-hearted,  to  proclaim 
liberty  to  the  captives^  and  the  opening  of  the  prison  to 
thenAhat  are  bound  ;  to  proclaim  the  acceptable  year  [the 
jubilee]  of  the  Lord,  and  the  day  of  vengeance  of  our 
God;  to  comfort  all  that  mourn  ;  to  appoint  to  them  that 
mourn  in  Zion,  to  give  them  beauty  for  ashes,  the  oil  of 
joy  for  mourning,  the  garment  of  praise  lor  the  spirit  o( 
heaviness;  that  "they  may  be  called.  Trees  of  righteous- 
ness, the  planting  of  the  Lord,  that  He  may  be  glo- 
rified." 

Then  follov/s,  immediately,  a  repetition,  in  substance, 
of  the  promises  made  in  the  fifty-eighth  chapter,  on  con- 
condition  of  undoing  the  heavy  burdens,  of  letting  the 
oppressed  go  free,  and  breaking  every  yoke.  (Compare 
Iviii.  12,  with  the  following  :) 

"And  they  shall  build  the*old  wastes,  they  shall  raise 
up  the  former  desolations,  and  they  shall  repair  the  waste 
cities,  the  desolations  of  many  generations." — Chap. 
Ixi.  4. 

A  little  onward  the  ground  or  condition  ot  these 
blessings  is  again  adverted  to. 

"  For  1,  the  Lord,  love  judgment  [i.  e.  the  execution  of 

justice]  I  hate  robbery  for  burnt-offering;  and  I  \yill  direct 

their  work  in  truth,  and  1  will  make  an  everlasting  cove- 

nant  with  them."— v.  8.     "  For  as  the  earth  bringeth  forth 

14 


S02  DEMOOEAOY  OF  CimiSTlANlTT, 

her  budy  and  as  the  garden  causeth  the  things  sown  in  it 
to  spring  forth,  so  the  JLord  will  cause  righteousness  and 
praise  to  spring  forth  before  all  the  nations  J'' — v.  II. 

Thus  manifestly  and  intimately  are  the  denunciations 
©f  oppression  in  the  fifty-eighth  and  fifty-ninth  chapters 
connected  in  this  prophecy  with  the  captivity  in  BabyloUy 
the  restoration  and  reformation  under  Ezra  and  Nehemi- 
ah,  the  advent  of  the  Messiah,  and  the  ultimate  establish- 
ment  of  r ighteouamesSy  peaccy  and  liberty  among  the  na- 
tions. 

This  applicati&n  of  these  prophecies  is  not  to  be  discredit- 
ed but  is  rather  to  be  confirmed  by  the  consideration  that 
here,  as  in  ©ther  prophecies  concerning  the  Messiah  and 
his  kingdom,  the  highest  spiritual  blessings  are  not  only 
»hadovfed  forth  under  the  images  of  terrestrial  and  tern" 
poral  mercies  but  are  closely  connected  with  them^  in  fact^ 
and  in  description,  so  that  one  picture,  equally  poetical 
and  historical,  answers  for  them  both  j  and  the  liberation 
of  the  victims  of  earthly  oppressors  and  of  the  slaves  of 
this  arch  deceiver,  come  under  on©  and  the  samecompre^ 
hensive  description. 


CHAPTER  XXII 

ov  TKE  HEBREW  FROFiiEQiEs,  ^.c.-^In  C ontinuation 

Jeremiah  *'  prophesied  for  forty  years  preceding  the 
Babylonish  captivity,"  and  *'  a  large  portion  of  his  pre- 
dictione  were  accomplished  during  his  iife-time  or  soon 
after  his  death.  *  *  Having  &een  the  utter  desolation 
of  Jerusalem  and  Judah,  he  was  carried  into  Egypt  by 
the  remnant  of  the  Jews,  who  rebelliously  fled  thither  j 
and  there  he  continued  to  prophesy,  till  they  were,  at 
length,  so  enraged  at  his  reproofs,  that  they  stoned  him 


DEMOCRACY  OF  CHRISTIANITY.  303 

to  death,  as  is  credibly  attested  by  several  ancient  wri- 
ters."— Scott, 

Assuredly  Jeremiah  was  in  a  position  to  understand 
the  prominent  and  crying  sins  of  the  age,  on  account  of 
which  his  nation  was  overthrown  by  the  Chaldeans. 

He  commences  with  reproofs  of  their  idolatries  but 
soon  proceeds  to  denounce  judgments  against  them  for 
their  oppressions. 

"Run  ye,  to  and  fro,  through  the  streets  of  Jerusalem, 
and  see  now,  and  know,  and  seek  in  the  broad  places 
thereof,  if  ye  can  find  a  man,  if  there  be  any  that  execu- 
teth  judgme?it^  that  seeketh  the  truth,  and  I  Avill  pardon  it." 
— Chap.x.  1. 

in  the  same  chapter  their  idolatry  and  licentiousness  are 
reproved,  but  before  its  close,  the  former  topic  again  recurs. 

"  For  among  my  people  are  found  wicked  men  ;  they 
lay  wait,  as  he  that  setteth  snares  ,  they  set  a  trap,  they 
catch  men.  As  a  cage  is  full  of  birds,  so  are  their 
houses  full  of  deceit;  therefore  they  are  become  great, 
and  waxen  rich.  They  are  waxen  fat  ;  they  shine  j  yea, 
they  overpass  the  deeds  of  the  wicked,  they  judge  not  the 
cause,  the  cause  of  the  fatherless,  yet  they  prosper  ;  and 
the  right  of  the  needy  do  they  not  judge.  Shall  I  not 
visit,  for  these  things,  saith  the  Lord,  shall  not  my  soul 
be  avenged  on  such  a  nation  as  this  1  A  wonderful  and 
horrible  thing  is  connected  in  the  land  ;  the  prophets 
prophesy  falsely,  and  the  priests  bear  rule  by  their  means; 
and  m}'-  people  love  to  have  it  so — and  what  will  ye  do  in 
the  end  thereof  ?"— r.  26-31. 

The  people  of  Judah  and  Jerusalem  had  been  charged 
with  the  execution  of  justice  between  a  man  and  his 
neighbor.  It  was  their  business  to  judge  the  cause  of 
the  fatherless.  The  lav/  given  them  by  Moses  had  made 
it  obligatory  on  them  to  do  this,  by  electing  judges  in  all 
their  gates,  who  should  judge  the  people  with  just  judg* 
ment.  To  fulfil  the  requisitions  of  this  law  was  a  part  of 
the  covenant  they  had  entered  into  in  the  time  of  Joshua. 
The  subversion  of  the  commonwealth  in  its  original  form 
and  the  establishment  of  a  limited  monarchy  had  not  an- 
nulled any  part  of  this  law,  or  broken  its  binding  eiTect 


§04  DEMOCRACY   OF   CHmSTIANItr. 

on  them,  and  that  for  two  plain  reasons.  First,  God's 
law  was  not  to  be  abrogated  by  their  rebellious  subver- 
sion of  the  commonwealth  in  desiring  a  king.  Second, 
when  God  granted  them  a  king^  it  was  done  under  the 
limitations  of  kingly  power  pointed  out  in  the  seventeenth 
chapter  of  Deuteronomy,  which  bound  the  king  to  keep 
*'  all  the  words  of  this  law.  and  these  statutes  to  do 
them" — and  this  included  a  provision  for  the  election  of 
just  judges  by  the  people,  as  before.  But  either  in  con- 
sequence of  their  king  worship  and  their  tacit  transfer  of 
their  political  responsibilities  into  his  hands  (which  al- 
most inevitably  must  have  been  the  case)  or  from  some 
ether  cause,  this  vitally  important  duty  had  been  neglect- 
ed by  the  people.  How  God  regarded  this  dereliction, 
the  words  just  quoted  inform  us.  Not  to  judge  the  father- 
less was  to  "  overpass  the  deeds  of  the  wicked" — to  sin 
beyond  the  ordinary  measure  of  human  criminality  and 
guilt.  There  were  also  false  prophets,  who,  instead  of 
reproving  this  sin,  had  covered  it  over,  or  palliated,  or 
made  light  of  it.  Under  the  same  false  teaching,  the 
priesthood,  in  connexion  with  the  perverted  civil  govern- 
ment, had  usurped  an  authority  that  had  never  been  com- 
mitted to  them,  so  that  the  people,  in  submitting  to  the 
joint  usurpations  of  the  church  and  the  state,  were  pre- 
cluded from  the  exercise  of  their  proper  functions  in  the 
judiciary. 

*'  The  (false)  prophets  accommodated  their  predictions 
to  the  humor  of  the  chief  priests  and  the  princes  were  in- 
fluenced by  them,  and  thus  the  nation  was  deceived  into 
the  expectation  of  permanent  prosperity,  and  submitted 
quietly  to  the  despotic  dominion  of  the  ungodly  rulers 
and  teachers,  for  they  loved  flattering  delusion,  which  en- 
couraged them  in  sin,  and  were  emboldened  to  despise 
the  disagreeable  messages  of  the  true  prophets.  But 
what  would  they  do,  when  the  event  should  verify  those 
dreadful  denunciations,  which  they  now  treated  as  the  ef- 
fect of  a  gloomy  imagination,  or  a  malevolent  disposi- 
tion."—^Sco^^. 

What   can  be  done  for  a  people,  or  how  can  they  be 


DEMOCRACY  OF  CHRIST1ANIT\'.  305 

preserved  from  destruction  when  they  thus  cherish  ail 
the  elements  in  which  it  is  so  manifestly  embodied'? 
When  the  people  themselves  throw  away  their  own  lib- 
erties by  loving  oppression  and  idolizing  despots,  how 
can  they  expect  to  be  any  thing  else,  in  the  end,  than 
slaves?  What  will  they  do — or  what  can  be  done,  to 
turn  aside  the  destiny  that  awaits  them  ? 

If  such  divine  messages  embody  any  principles  of  gen- 
eral application,  that  could  render  them  of  any  permanent 
value,  as  a  part  of  the  holy  Scriptures,  do  they  not  teach  us 
that  God  holds  the  people  vespons'ihle  for  the  administration 
of  public  justice,  and  that  if  they  neglect  to  honor  their 
high  trust,  their  own  liberties  must  ultimately  pay  the 
forfeit  1  And  if  these  teachings  are  not  decidedly  demo- 
cratic, in  what  more  emphatic  language  could  the  lesson 
be  conveyed  ? 

But  we  are  now  citing  these  prophecies  more  especially 
to  the  point  of  illustrating  the  Hebrew  history,  and  of 
showing  the  moral  causes  of  the  captivity  in  Babylon. 
Connecting  these  prophetic  warnings  of  Jeremiah  with  the 
events  that  soon  followed  or  which  were  even  then  visible 
in  embryo,  they  are  too  significant  and  instructive  to  be 
overlooked.  The  very  next  paragraph  commences  a  graphic 
picture  of  the  Chaldean  invasion  : 

"  O  ye  children  of  Benjamin,  gather  yourselves  to  flee 
out  of  the  midst  of  Jerusalem,  and  blow  the  trumpet  in 
Tekoa,  and  set  up  a  sign  of  fire  in  Beth-haccarem,  for 
evil  appeareth  out  of  the  north  and  great  destruction." — 
vi.  1. 

After  announcing  a  commission  of^he  Chaldeans  to  in- 
vade Jerusalem,  the  devoted  city  is  thus  addressed: 

"Be  thou  instructed,  O  Jerusalem,  lest  my  soul  depart 
from  thee,  lest  I  make  thee  desolate,  a  land  not  inhabi- 
ted."—v.  8. 

The  entire  chapter  is  occupied  with  predictions  of  the 
coming  invasion,  interspersed  with  reproofs,  expostula- 
tions, and  warnings,  analogous  to  those  we  have  quoted 
already.     The  next  chapter,  the  seventh,  commences  with 


306  DEMOCRACY  OF  CHRISTIANITY. 

another  call  upon  the  nation  to  repent  and  reform,  with 
promises  that  even  then,  at  that  late  day,  the  destruction 
impending  over  them  should  on  that  condition  be  turned 
away  : 

*'  The  word  that  came  to  Jeremiah  from  the  Lord  say- 
ing. Stand  in  the  gate  of  the  Lord's  house,  and  proclaim 
there  this  word  and  say,  Hear  the  word  of  the  Lord,  all 
ye  of  Judah,  that  enter  in  at  these  gates  to  worship  the 
Lord." 

Notice  here  that  the  prophet  was  not  sent  to  the  palace, 
to  the  king,  to  the  court,  or  to  the  priesthood — as  though 
all  the  responsibilities  of  public  affairs  were  committed  to 
them — but  he  was  sent  to  "  all  Judah,"  the  entire  nation, 
and  he  was  to  take  his  stand  where  he  could  be  heard  by 
the  greatest  number  of  the  people.  Now  for  the  mes- 
sage : 

"  Thus  saith  the  Lord  of  hosts,  the  God  of  Israel,  Amend 
your  ways  and  your  doings,  and  I  will  cause  you  to  dwell 
in  this  place.  Trust  ye  not  in  lying  words,  saying,  The 
temple  of  the  Lord,  the  temple  of  the  Lord,  the  temple  of 
the  Lord  are  these.  For  if  ye  thoroughly  amend  your 
ways  and  your  doings,  if  ye  thoroughly  execute  judgment 
between  a  man  and  his  neighbor^  neither  walk  after  other 
gods  to  your  hurt,  then  will  I  cause  you  to  dwell  in  this 
place,  in  the  land  that  I  gave  to  your  fathers  forever  and 
ever.  i3ehold,  ye  trust  in  lying  words  that  can  not  pro- 
fit. Will  ye  steal,  murder,  and  commit  adultery,  and 
swear  falsely,  and  burn  incense  unto  Baal,  and  walk  after 
other  gods  whom  ye  know  not ;  and  come  and  stand  before 
me  in  this  place,  and  say.  We  are  delivered  to  do  all 
these  abominations  1  Is  this  house  which  is  called  by 
my  name  become  a  den  of  robbers  in  your  eyes  'I  Behold, 
even  I  have  seen  it,  saith  the  Lord.  But  go  ye  now  to 
my  place  which  was  in  Shiloh,  where  I  set  my  place  at 
the  first,  and  see  what  I  did  to  it,  for  the  wickedness  of 
my  people  Israel.  And  now,  because  ye  have  done  all 
these  works,  saith  the  Lord,  and  I  spake  unto  you,  rising 
up  early  and  speaking,  but  ye  heard  not,  and  I  called  you, 
and  ye  answered  not ;  therefore  will  1  do  unto  this  house, 
which  is  called  by  my  name,  wherein  ye  trust,  and  unto 
the  place  which  I  gave  to  you  and  to  your  fathers,  as  1 
have  done  to  Shiloh.   And  1  will  cast  you  out  of  my  sight, 


OEM0CnAt3Y  OF  CHRISTIANITY,  30t 

as  1  have  cast  out  all  your  brethren,  even  the  whole  seed 
of  Ephraim." — vii.  1-15. 

Ephraim  (and  the  term  stands  for  the  ten  tribes)  had 
already  gone  into  captivity,  and  their  land  was  laid  deso- 
late or  given  to  the  heathen,  and  this  included  Shiloh,  the 
place  where  the  ark  <i(  God  and  His  national  worship 
were  first  located.  Such  should  be  the  fate  of  Judah,  of 
Jerusalem,  and  their  idolized  temple  unless  they  repented 
of  their  transgressions,  which  were  specified,  their  thefts, 
their  murders,  their  licentiousiaess,  their  deception,  their 
falsehood,  their  perjury,  their  oppressions,  their  burning 
of  incense  to  Baal.  But  at  the  head  of  this  catalogue  of 
crimes  was  their  broken  down  or  perverted  judiciary — 
their  neglecting  to  execute  judgment  between  a  man  and 
his  neighbor — and  this  was  immediately  coupled  with  their 
worship  of  false  gods,  as  though  the  two  sins  sustained  a 
close  relation  to  each  other,  as  they  must  have  done,  if  the 
democratic  judiciary  was  displaced  by  their  idolatry  of 
kings,  and  if  the  statues  of  kings  and  heroes  constituted, 
chiefly  the  image-worship  of  those  times,  in  the  eighth 
chapter  Jehovah  is  repr^sent-ed  as  saying: 

^'  Therefore  will  I  give  their  wives  unto  others,  and 
their  fields  unto  them  that  shall  inherit  them,  for  every 
one  from  the  least  even  unto  the  greatest  is  given  to  eovet- 
ousness,  from  the  prophet  even  unto  the  priest  every  one 
dealeth  falsely.  For  they  have  healed  the  hurt  of  the 
daughter  of  m}-  people  slightly,  saying,  Peace,  peac<e  I 
when  there  is  no  peace.'' — v.  10-11. 

The  love  of  gain  was  at  the  bottom  of  the  oppressions 
violations  of  human  rights  before  described,  and  w^hicli 
the  people,  by  neglecting  to  discharge  the  duties  of  civil 
government,  had  left  unrestrained  and  unredressed.  The 
prophets  and  the  priests  had  avoided  any  disturbing  and 
unwelcome  agitations  of  the  subject.  They  had  done  this 
under  the  plea  of  promoting  peace,  and  while  predicting 
peace  and  prosperity  to  the  nation  ;  but  these  transgres- 
sions rendered  peace  an  impossibility,  and  the  hope  of 
preserving  it  a  delusion. 


308  DEMOCRACY  OF  aHRISTIANITT. 

"  We  looked  for  peace,  but  no  good  came,  for  a  time  of 
health,  and  behold  trouble.  The  snorting  of  his  horses 
was  heard  from  Dan,  the  whole  land  trembled  at  the  sound 
of"  the  neighing-  of  his  strong  ones,  for  they  are  come  and 
have  devoured  the  land  and  all  that  is  in  it,  the  city  and 
those  that  dwell  therein." — v.  15-16. 

*'  The  harvest  is  past,  the  summer  is  ended,  and  we  are 
saved."— 2;.  20. 

The  scenes  of  the  Chald3an  invasion  are  vividly  por- 
trayed in  the  paragraphs  from  whence  tl^ese  selections 
are  taken.  Thus  doour  commentators  understand  the  text, 
and  the  connexion  identifies  these  retributive  dispensa- 
tions with  the  violations  of  human  rights  that  had  previ- 
ously been  censured.  The  prophet  proceeds  in  this  man- 
ner through  several  successive  chapters,  till  in  the  twen- 
ty first  he  breaks  forth  as  follows : 

"  O  house  David,  thus  saith  the  Lord,  Execute  judg- 
ment in  the  morning,  [i.  e.  timely,  earlyj  and  deliver  him 
that  is  spoiled  out  of  the  hand  of  the  oppressor,  lest  my 
lury  go  out  and  burn  like  fire,  and  burn  that  none  can 
quench  it,  because  of  the  evil  of  your  doings.'^ — v,  12. 

And  again : 

"  Thus  saith  the  Lord,  Execute  ye  judgment  and 
righteousness,  and  deliver  the  spoiled  out  of  the 
hand  of  the  oppressor,  and  do  no  wrong,  do  no  violence 
to  the  stranger,  the  fatherless,  nor  the  widow,  neither 
shed  innocent  blood  in  this  place.  For  if  ye  do  this  thing 
indeed,  then  shall  there  enter  in  by  the  gates  of  this 
house,  kings  sitting  on  the  throne  of  David,  riding  in  cha- 
riots and  on  horses,  he,  and  his  servants,  and  his  people. 
But  if  ye  will  not  hear  these  words,  I  swear  by  myself, 
saith  the  Lord,  that  this  house  shall  become  a  desola- 
tion."— xxii.  3-5. 

Can  it  be  doubted  that  the  sin  of  oppression  and  espe- 
cially the  neglect  to  provide  for  the  due  administration 
of  justice,  was  emphatically  the  crying  sin  of  the  govern- 
ment and  people  of  Judah,  on  account  of  which  God  per- 
mitted the  Chaldean  invasion  and  the  Babylonian  cap- 
tivity 1  A  little  onward,  the  oppressions  of  the  reigning 
monarchs  are  thus  reproved: 


DEMOCRACY  OF  CHRISTrANITY.  309 

*^  Thus  saith  the  Lord  concerning  Shallum,  the  son  of 
.losiah,  king-  of  Judah,  which  reigned  instead  of  Josiah, 
his  father,  which  went  forth  out  of  this  place.  He  shall 
not  return  thither  any  more  5  but  he  shall  die  in  the  place 
whither  they  have  led  him  captive,  and  shall  see  this 
land  no  more.  Wo  unto  him  that  buildeth  his  house  by 
unrighteousness  and  his  chambers  by  wrong,  that  useth 
his  neighbor's  service  without  wffges,  and  giveth  him  not 
for  his  work  ;  that  saith,  I  will  build  me  a  wide  house  and 
large  chambers,  and  cutteth  him  out  windows ;  and  it 
is  ceiled  with  cedar,  and  painted  with  vermillion.  Shalt 
thou  reign  because  thou  closest  thyself  in  ced.ir  ]  Did 
not  thy  father  eat  and  drink,  and  do  judgment  and  jus- 
tice 1  Then  it  was  well  with  him.  He  judged  the  cause 
of  the  poor  and  needy,  then  it  was  well  with  him.  Was 
not  this  to  know  me,  saith  the  Lord]  But  thine  eyes 
and  thine  heart  are  not  but  for  thy  coveteousness,  and  for 
to  shed  innocent  blood  ;  and  for  oppression  and  violence, 
to  do  it.  Therefore  thus  saith  the  Lord,  concerning  Je- 
hoiakin,  the  son  of  Josiah,  king  of  Judah  j  they  shall  not 
lament  for  him,  saying.  Ah!  my  brother,  or  ah!  sis- 
ter. They  shall  not  lament  for  him,  saying.  Ah!  lord, 
or  ah  !  his  glory  !  He  shall  be  buried  with  the  burial  of 
an  ass,  drawn  and  cast  forth  beyond  the  gates  of  Jerusa- 
lem.''—z;.  11-18. 

In  the  thirty-fourth  chapter  of  Jeremiah  there  is  an  ac- 
count of  some  remarkable  transactions  in  the  times  of 
king  Zedekiah,  and  of  the  message  which  the  prophet 
delivered  from  Jehovah  on  account  of  them. 

The  king,  it  seems,  had  entered  into  a  covenant  with 
"  the  people  which  were  at  Jerusalem,  to  proclaim  liber 
ty  unto  them,  that  every  man  should  let  his  man-servant 
and  every  man  his  maid-servant,  being  an  Hebrew  or  an 
Hebrewess,  go  free."  The  princes  and  the  people  enter- 
ed into  this  arrangement  and  promised  to  do  accordingly  j 
but  afterwards  they  violated  their  promise  and  "  brought 
them  into  subjection."  The  message  by  Jeremiah  assu- 
red them  that  Giod  would  deliver  them  "  into  the  hands  of 
their  enemies"  and  "  into  the  hand  of  the  king  of  Baby- 
lon's army."     The   provocation   and   the    corresponding 

sentence  are  thus  stated  : 

14* 


310  DEMOCRACY    OP    CfiRISTTANITY. 

"  Therefore,  thus  saith  the  Lord,  ye  have  not  hearkened 
unto  me,  in  proclaiming  liberty,  every  one  to  his  brother, 
and  every  man  to  his  neighbor  j  behold  I  have  proclaimed 
a  liberty  for  you,  saith  the  Lord,  to  the  sword,  and  to  the 
pestilence,  and  to  the  famine,  and  1  will  make  you  to  be 
removed  into  all  the  kingdoms  of  the  earth." — v,  17. 

The  nature  of  the  transgressions  on  account  of  which, 
maii^ly,  the  people  of  Judah  and  Jerusalem  went  into  cap- 
tivity^is  here  placed  beyond  a  question.  Violations  of  the 
fundamental  principle  of  democracy,  are  all  along  made 
prominent  in  the  divine  warnings,  admonitions,  reproofs, 
denunciations,  and  predictions  addressed  to  them. 

EzEKiEL  "  executed  his  office  among  the  captives  in 
Chaldea,  during  the  latter  part  of  the  time  that  Jeremiah 
was  employed  at  Jerusalem  ;  and  till  some  time  after  the 
destruction  of  their  city.  He  seems  to  have  been  carried 
into  captivity  with  Zeconiah." — Sco/t.  His  prophecies 
contain  "  severe  reproofs  of  the  enormous  wickedness 
both  of  the  Jews  at  Jerusalem,  of  the  captives,  and  the 
whole  nation,  with  their  kings,  princes,  priests,  and 
prophets,  and  awful  predictions  against  them." — lb. 

A  few  specimens  from  this  prophet  must  suffice: 

"If  a  man  be  just  *  *  and  hath  not  oppressed  any, 
but  hath  restored  to  the  debtor  his  pledge,  hath  spoiled 
none  by  violence,  hath  given  his  bread  to  the  hungry,  and 
hath  covered  the  naked  with  a  garment,  /latk  executed 
true  judgment  between  a  man  and  his  neighbor^  he  shall 
surely  live,  saith  the  Lord  God." — xviii.  5-9. 

Such,  however,  was  not  the  character  of  the  nation 
whom  God  had  delivered  into  the  hands  of  the  Chaldeans. 
Being  carried  in  the  spirit  to  the  east  gate  of  the  temple, 
the  prophet  was  commanded  to  prophesy  as  follows  : 

"  Thus  saith  the  Lord,  O  house  of  Israel.  *  *  Ye 
have  multiplied  your  slain  in  this  city  (Jerusalem)  and 
ye  have  filled  the  streets  thereof  with  the  slain.  There- 
fore, thus  saith  the  Lord  God,  your  slain  whom  j^e  have 
laid  in  the  midst  of  it,  they  are  the  flesh'  and  this  city  is 
the  cauldron  ;  but  I  will  bring  you  forth,  out  of  the  midst 
of  It."— CAa/.  xi.  5-7.     ' 

From  an   unique  passage  in  the  prophecy  of  Ezekiel, 


DEMOCRACY  OF  CHRISTIANITY.  311 

(Chap.  xiii.  17-23,)  it  appears  probable  that  certain  in- 
cantations and  divinations  of  idolatrous  worship,  and  of 
a  most  diabolical  character,  were  employed  by  a  class  of 
abandoned  females,  under  pretence  of  fortune-telling,  for 
hire,  among  a  people  at  once  superstitious  and  rapacious, 
to  assist  in  schemes  of  oppression  and  violence,  to  pre- 
vent or  pervert  the  administration  of  public  justice,  bring- 
ing condemnation  upon  the  innocent,  and  affording  pro- 
tection to  the  guilty.  If  so,  a  more  terrific  and  bloody 
ally  of  injustice,  dishonesty,  and  d-espotism  cannot  easi 
ly  be  conceived.  "  By  lies  they  made  the  heart  of  the 
righteous  sad,  and  strengthened  the  hands  of  the  wick- 
ed"—they  contrived  to  "  hunt  the  souls  of  the  people, 
and  promised  to  save  the  souls  that  came  unto  them." 
Against  these,  the  prophet  was  commanded  to  direct  his 
denunciations. 

In  the  sixteenth  chapter  of  this  prophecy  (v.  48-50)  is 
the  comparison  of  the  people  of  Judah  and  Jerusalem  to 
those  of  Sodom,  which  we  took  occasion  to  quote  in  an- 
other connexion.  The  sin  of  Sodom  and  of  Jerusalem 
was  "pride,  fulness  of  bread,  abundance  of  idleness, 
haughtiness,"  lasciviousness,  and  neglecting  to  "strength- 
en the  hand  of  the  needy" — the  sin  of  every  luxurious 
and  aristocratic  community  that  neglects  works  of  mer- 
cy and  the  proper  administration  of  justice.  We  revert 
to  it  again,  here,  to  note  the  connexion  of  the  former 
prophec}  with  the  history,  in  the  scenes  of  the  captivity 
in  Babylon,  How  little  did  the  professedly  pious  popu- 
lation of  Jerusalem  give  credit  to  this  description  of  their 
character  !  "  Thy  sister  Sodom  was  not  mentioned  by 
thee  in  the  day  of  thy  pride." — v.  56. 

In  another  part  of  the  prophecy  the  princes  of  Israel 
are  characterized  as  a  rapacious  young  lion,  educated  in 
the  art  of  catching  men  !  "  He  went  up  and  down  among 
the  lions,  and  learned  to  catch  the  prey  and  devour  men." 
At  length  the  lion  was  caught,  and  they  "  put  him  in  ward 
iu  chains,  and  brought  him  to  the  king  of  Babylon,  they 


312  DEMOCRACY    OV   CHRISTlANrTif. 

brought  into  holds,  that  his  voice  should  no  more  he 
heard  upon  the  mountains  of  Israel.'* — C/iap.  xix.  6,  9. 

In  the  twenty-second  chapter,  Jerusalem  is  character- 
ized as  "a  bloody  city."     (v.  1.) 

"Behold,  the  princes  of  Israel,  every  one  were  m  thee, 
to  their  power  to  shed  blood.  In  thee  they  have  set  light 
by  father  and  mother  ;  in  the  midst  of  thee  they  have 
dealt  by  oppression  with  the  stranger ;  in  thee  they  have 
vexed  the  fatherless  and  the  widow." — v.  6-7. 

"  In  thee  have  they  taken  gifts  to  shed  blood,  thou  hast 
taken  usury  and  increase,  and  thou  hast  greedily  gained 
of  thy  neighbors  by  extortion,  and  hast  forgotten  me, 
saith  the  Lord  God.  Behold,  therefore  I  have  smitten 
mine  hand  at  thy  dishonest  gain  which  thou  hast  m£|^de, 
and  at  thy  blood  which  hath  been  in  the  midst  of  thee. 
*  *  And  I  will  scatter  thee  among  the  heathen,  and 
disperse  thee  in  the  countries,  and  will  consume  thy  filth- 
iness  out  of  thee." — v.  12-18. 

*'  And  the  word  of  the   Lord  came  unto   me,   saying, 
Son  of  man,  say  unto  her.  Thou  art  the  land  that  art  not 
cleansed,   nor   rained    upon   in   the   day   of   indignation. 
There  is  a  conspiracy  of  her  prophets  in  the  midst  there- 
of, like  a  roaring  lion,    ravening   the  prey,  they  have  de- 
voured souls,  they  have  taken  the  treasure,  and  precious 
things,  and   they   have   made   her   many  widows  in  the 
midst  thereof.     *     *     Her  princes   in   the  midst  of  her 
are  like  wolves,  ravening  the  prey,  to  shed  blood,  and  to 
destroy  souls,  to   get  dishonest  gain.     And  her  prophets 
have  daubed  them  with  untempered  mortar,  seeing  vani- 
ty and   divining  lies,  unto   them,  saying,  Thus  saith  the 
Lord,  and  the  Lord   hath  not  spoken.     The  people  of  the 
land   have    used   oppression,  and  exercised  robbery,  and 
have  vexed  the  poor  and  needy  ;  yea,  they  have  oppress- 
ed the   stranger  wrongfully."    And  I   sought  for  a  man 
among  them  that  should  make  up  the  hedge,  that  should 
stand  in  the  gap,  before  me,  in  the  land,  that  1  should  not 
destroy   it,  and  I  found  none.     Therefore,    I  have  poured 
out   my  indignation   upon  them  :  I  have  consumed  them 
with  the  fire  of  my  wrath  ;  their  own  way  have  I  recom- 
pensed upon  their  heads,  saith  the  Lord  God."— t?.  23-31. 

What  a  picture!  Corruption  in  the  priesthood — op- 
pression in  the  government — oppression  among  the  people 
— no  righteous  administration  of  justice  between  man  and 


Demccr.^cy  of  Ceiristianitv.  313 

itian — no  one  to  stand  in  the  breach — the  long  suffering  of 
Jehovah  himself  wearied — the  nation  given  up  to  its  des- 
tiny. The  whole  may  be  summed  up  in  a  single  word. 
A  general  violation  of  the  principle  of  democracy  and 
common  brotherhood,  in  the  church  and  in  the  state,  in 
high  places  and  in  low,  had  not  only  subverted  the  insti- 
tutions of  Moses,  but  had  displaced  the  spirit  upon  which 
they  were  based.  The  piety  and  the  manhood  of  the  na- 
tion had  gone  to  decay,  the  salt  had  lost  its  savor,  and 
was  just  fit  to  be  cast  out  and  trodden  under  foot  of  men. 
"Therefore,  thus  saith  the  Lord  God,  Woe  to  the 
bloody  city  :  1  will  even  make  the  pile  for  fire  great. 
Heap  on  wood  !  Kindle  the  fire,  consume  the  flesh,  and 
spice  it  well,  and  let  the  bones  be  burned." — xxiv.  9-10. 

HosEA  was  contemporary  with  Isaiah,  "  in  the  days  of 
Uzziah,  Jotham,  Ahaz,  and  Hezekiah,  kings  of  Judah, 
and  in  the  days  of  Jeroboam,  the  son  of  Joash,  king  of  Is- 
rael.'' He  "  is  supposed  to  have  been  o^  the  kingdom  of 
Israel,  though  his  prophecies  frequently  relate  to  Judah 
also."  His  pictures  of  the  state  of  societ}^  at  that  period 
are  similar  to  those  of  Isaiah. 

"  Hear  the  word  of  the  Lord,  ye  children  of  Israel,  for 
the  Lord  hath  a  controversy  with  the  inhabitants  of  the 
land,  because  tbere  is  no  truth,  nor  mercy,  nor  knowl- 
edge of  God  in  the  land.  By  swearing,  and  lying,  and 
killing,  and  stealing,  and  committingadultery,  they  break 
out,  and  blood  touchcth  blood.  Therefore  the  Innd  shall 
mourn,  and  every  one  that  dwelleth  therein  shall  languish 
with  the  beasts  of  the  field  and  with  the  fowls  of  heaven, 
yea,  the  fishes  ot  the  sea  also  shall  be  taken  away." — 
Chcq).  iv.  1-3. 

"  There  was  hardly  any  sincerity,  veracity,  or  fideJity 
to  be  found  among  them,  they  were  dissemblers  in  reli- 
gion, and  they  were  deceivers  and  imposters  in  their  com- 
merce with  each  other.  As  there  was  no  honesty  among 
them,  it  was  hardly  to  be  expected  that  there  should  be 
any  mercy,  or  compassion,  or  kindness  to  the  poor  and 
alBicted  ;  and  in  fact,  they  were  cruel  and  selfish  extor- 
tioners and  oppressors  of  the  poor,"  &c. — Scott. 

"  Yet,  let  no  man  strive,  nor  reprove  another,  for  thy 
people  are  as  they  that  strive  with  the  priest.     Therefore 


S14  DE^roCRACY  OF  CHRlSTlANnT. 

shalt  thou  fall  in  the  day,  and  the  prophet  also  shall  fall 
with  thee  in  the  night,  and  I  will  destroy  thy  mother." — 
V.  4-5. 

The  meaning  seems  to  be  this  ? 

"  Yet  no  man  contendeth,  and  no  man  reproveth.  This 
is  a  natural  rendering,  and  gives  a  very  usual  sense  of  the 
Hebrew  future." — Bishop  Jfewcomhe. 

"  While  wickedness,  ot  all  kinds  was  committed,  there 
was  no  one,  either  magistrate,  or  priest,  or  prophet,  who 
protested  against  it,  or  steadily  opposed  it." — Scott. 

"My  people  are  destroyed  for  lack  of  knowledge." — v.  6. 

"  And  there  shall  be,  like  people,  like  priest,  and  I  will 
punish  them  for  their  ways  and  reward  them  for  their 
doings." — V.  9. 

Violations  of  equal  brotherhood  and  inalienable  human 
rights  constituted  the  vices  chiefly  reproved.  There  was 
no  just  magistracy  provided  to  restrain  and  punish  these 
crimes.  And  for  all  this  the  mass  of  the  people  were 
held  responsible  and  should  be  punished.  Even  the  de*- 
relictions  of  the  priesthood  were  attributed  to  them,  and 
their  want  of  knowledge  was  the  destruction  of  the  State. 

All  this  was  in  the  midst  of  apparent  commercial  pros- 
perity, and  closely  connected  with  the  hoarding  of  gains 
procured  by  fraud  and  extortion. 

'*He  is  a  merchant;  the  balances  of  deceit  are  in  his 
hand:  he  loveth  to  oppress.  And  Ephraim  said,  Yet  am 
1  become  rich,  I  have  found  me  out  substance.  In  all  mv 
labors  they  shall  find  none  iniquity  in  me  that  were  sin.*' 
— Chap.  xii.  7-8. 

"  They  ascribed  their  wealth  to  their  own  industry, 
and  tliought  it  a  substantial  advantage  ;  and  though  the 
prophets  might  condemn  them,  they  were  satisfied  that 
they  could  not  be  detected  in  any  iniquitous  methods  of 
getting  rich  that  could  properly  be  called  sin,  or  deserve 
the  wrath  of  God.  What  was  not  absolutely  to  be  justi- 
fied might  at  least  be  excused." — Scott. 

How  much  of  what  in  modern  language  is  called  com- 
mercial enterprize,  skill  in  financiering,  and  political  econ- 
omy, encouraged  by  class  legislations  and  chartered  mo- 
nopolies— to  say  nothing  of  more  grievous  oppressions, 
direct  opposition  to  the  foundation  principles  of  democra- 


DEMOCRACY    OF    CHRISTIANITY.  3l5 

cy — would  come  appropriately  under  this  description. 
And  how  commonly  is  it  pleaded  that  they  are  not  abso- 
lutely sinful — that,  if  not  altogether  in  accordance  with 
natural  equity,  yet,  nevertheless,  they  are  not  to  be  reli- 
giously discountenanced  and  reproved  !  But,  listen  to  the 
prophecy  : 

"  Samaria  shall  become  desolate,  for  she  hath  re- 
belled ag-ainst  her  God  5  they  shall  fall  by  the  sword." — 
Chap.  xiii.  16. 

How  prosperous  a  nation  may  appear  to  be,  and  how 
confident  of  continued  security  and  prosperity,  when  on 
the  very  verge  of  destruction  !  And  how  commonly  is 
this  the  case  when  the  principles  and  the  spirit  of  equal 
and  common  brotherhood  have  disappeared  or  are  trampled 
under  foot !  True,  indeed,  the  nation  may  not  always  be- 
come extinct,  like  the  ten  tribes,  or  suffer  a  seventy  years 
captivity  like  Judah.  A  heavier  retribution  may  await 
it,  in  the  unmitigated  and  perpetual  despotism  of  its  own 
hereditary  tyrants. 

Amos  propesied  in  the  times  of  Uzziah,  king  of  Judah, 
and  of  Joash,  king  ot  Israel : 

"  Thus  saith  the  Lord,  For  three  transgressions  of  Is- 
rael and  for  four,  T  will  not  turn  away  the  punishment 
thereof,  because  they  sold  the  righteous  for  silver  and  the 
poor  for  a  pair  of  shoes  ;  that  pant  after  the  dust  of  the 
earth  on  the  head  of  the  poor,  and  turn  aside  the  way  of 
the  meek,"  &;c. — Chap.  ii.  b,  7. 

Licentiousness  and  idolatry  are  connected  with  oppres- 
sion in  the  completion  of  the  picture. 

"  Hear  this  word  of  the  Lord,  ye  kine  of  Bashan,  that 
are  in  the  mountain  of  Samaria,  which  oppress  the  poor, 
and  crush  the  needy,  which  say  to  their  masters,  Bring, 
and  let  us  drink.  The  Lord  God  hath  sworn  by  His  holi- 
ness, that  lo  !  the  days  shall  come  that  He  shall  take  you 
away  with  hooks,  and  your  posterity  with  fish-hooks." — 
Amos  iv.  1-2. 

"  For  thus  saith  the  Lord  unto  tlie  house  of  Israel,  Seek 
ye  me  and  ye  shall  live  *  *  Seek  the  Lord  and  ye 
shall  live;  lest  He  break  out  like  fire  in  the  house  of  Jo- 
seph and  devour  it,  and  there  be  none  to  quench  it  in  Bethel. 


31G  DEMOCRACY  OF  CHRISTIANITY. 

Ye  who  turn  judgment  into  wormwood,  and  Jeav'e  off  to 
do  righteousness  in  the  earth,  seek  Him  that  maketh 
the  seven  stars  and  Orion,  and  turneth  tlie  shadow  of 
night  into  morning,  and  maketh  the  day  dark  \vith  night, 
that  calleth  for  the  waters  of  the  sea,  and  pouretli  them 
out  upon  the  earth.  The  Lord  is  His  name,  that  strength- 
eneth  the  spoiled  against  the  strong,  so  that  the  spoiled 
shall  come  against  the  fortress.  They  hate  him  that  re- 
buketh  in  the  gate,  and  they  abhor  him  that  speaketh  up- 
rightly. Forasmuch,  therefore,  as  your  treading  is  upon 
the  poor,  and  ye  have  taken  from  him  burdens  of  wheat  ; 
ye  have  built  houses  of  hewn  stone,  but  ye  shall  not  dwell 
in  them ;  ye  have  planted  pleasant  vineyards,  but  ye  shall 
not  drink  wine  of  them.  For  I  know  your  manifold  trans- 
gressions and  your  mighty  sins;  they  afflict  the  just,  they 
take  a  bribe,  and  turn  aside  the  poor  in  the  gate  from 
their  right." — Chap.  v.  4-12. 

"Hate  the  evil,  and  love  the  good,  and  establish  judg- 
ment in  the  gate  :  it  may  bo  that  the  Lord  God  of  hosts 
will  be  gracious  to  the  remnant  of  Joseph." — v.  15. 

■  To  the  whole  "house  of  Israel" — the  mass  of  the  people 
— was  this  message  addressed,  and  the  principal  burdenof 
of  reproof  is  the  corrupt  state  of  the  judiciary.  On  them, 
chiefly,  the  responsibility  of  a  reform  rested,  and  the  fa- 
vor of  God,  was  suspended,  in  no  small  degree,  upon  their 
fidelity  in  this  matter,  To  have  heeded  these  divine  ad- 
monitions would  have  been  to  re-assert  their  long  forgot- 
ten rights  in  the  councils  of  their  nation.  It  would  have 
been  to  restore  the  democratic  judiciary  of  the  i'dosaic 
commonwealth,  or  see  to  it  that  its  ends  were  secured. 
Thus  we  must  construe  the  passage,  or  else  suppose  that 
literally  all  the  people,  or  the  mass  of  then),  were  person- 
ally guilty  of  flagrant  oppression  in  their  dealings.  Nor 
would  even  that  supposition  do  away  with  the  fact  that 
the  people  were  exhorted  in  the  text  "to  establish  judg- 
ment in  the  gate,''  or  court  of  justice  In  language 
similar  to  that  of  Isaiah,  this  prophet,  speaking  in  the 
name  of  Jehovah,  proceeds  : 

''  1  hate,  I  despise  your  feast  days  ;  and  1  will  not  smell 
in  your  solemn  assemblies.     Though   ye  offer  me  burnt- 


DEMOCRACY   OF  CHRISTIANITY.  317 

ofterings,  and  your  meat-offerings,  I  will  not  accept  thenn, 
neither  will  I  regard  the  peace-offerings  of  your  fat  beasts. 
Take  thou  away  from  me  the  noise  of  thy  songs,  for  I  will 
not  hear  the  melody  of  thy  viols.  But  let  jzidgment  run  down 
as  waters,  and  righteousness  as  a  mighty  stream."-?;.  2 1-24» 

On  this  passage  as  on  some  others,  we  prefer  to  give 
the  remarks  of  judicious  and  accredited  commentators,  in 
preference  to  our  own  : 

*'  The  Israelites  were  encouraged  in  presumption  by  the 
observance  of  religious  solemnities.  Perhaps  in  the  tem- 
ples of  the  ten  tribes  they  copied  the  manner  of  keeping 
the  solemn  feasts,  and  of  presenting  the  sacrifices,  and 
even  of  music  and  psalmody  in  use  at  the  temple  of  Jeru- 
salem. But  the  whole  was  so  coupled  w  ith  idolatry,  su- 
perstition, hypocricy,  and  iniquity,  that  God  utterly  ab- 
horred and  rejected  it.  Some,  however,  think  that  Judah 
was  also  included  in  this  rebuke,  and  on  very  probable 
grounds.  Instead  of  relying  on  these  external  and  hypo- 
critical services,  they  would  do  better  to  reform  their  courts  of 
justice^  that  judgment  and  equity  might  thence  be  diffused, 
like  streams  of  water,  thoughout  the  land.  Thus  a  hope- 
ful beginning  might  be  made  in  the  reformation  of  morals 
and  religion^  without  which  no  sacrifices  could  please  God.^' 
— Scoti. 

"  Let  justice  have  its  free  course,  so  that  the  meanest 
persons  might  have  the  benefit  of  it." — Lowtli. 

In  the  next  chapter  we  have  a  glowing  description  and 
a  severe  denunciation  of  the  voluptuous  and  luxurious 
aristocracy  of  the  times,  whose  superstitious  confidence 
in  their  places  of  worship,  and  whose  self-indulgent  deli- 
cacy were  connected  with  acts  of  judicial  violence  and 
heartless  indifference  to  the  sufferings  of  the  masses  of 
their  brethren  around  them. 

"  Wo  to  them  that  are  at  ease  in  Zion,  that  trust  in  the 
mountain  of  Samaria,  that  are  named  chief  of  the  nations, 
to  whom  the  house  of  Israel  came  *  *  Ye  that  put  far 
away  the  evil  day,  and  cause  the  seat  of  violence  to  come 
near,  that  lie  on  beds  of  ivory  and  stretch  themselves  up- 
on tluir  couches,  and  cat  the  lambs  out  of  the  fiock  and 
the  calves  out  of  the  stall,  that  chant  to  the  sound  of  the 
viol,  and  invent  to  themselves  instruments  of  music  like 
David  ;  that  drink  wine  in  bowls,  and  anoint  themselves 


318  DEMOCRACY  OF  CHRIST! ANJ-VT 

with  the  chief  ointments,  but  they  are  not  grieved  for  the 
afflictions  of  Joseph.  Therefore  now  shall  they  go  cap- 
tive with  the  first  that  go  captive,  and  the  banquet  of 
them  that  stretch  themselves  shall  be  removed.  The 
Lord  God  hath  sworn  by  himself,  saith  the  Lord  God  of 
hosts,  I  abhor  the  excellency  of  Jacob  and  hate  his  palaces, 
therefore  will  I  deliver  up  the  city  with  all  that  is  there- 
in."— V.  1-8.  "  For  ye  have  turned  judgment  into  gall, 
and  the  fruit  of  righteousness  into  hemlock." — v.  12. 

"  The  administration  of  public  justice,  and  even  their 
religious  observances,  had  proved  as  nauseous  as  gall  and 
as  poisonous  as  hemlock,  instead  of  being  a  source' or  an 
example  of  equity  and  piety.'' — Scott. 

"  Hear  this,  O  ye  that  swallow  up  the  needy,  even  to 
make  the  poor  of  the  land  to  fail ;  saying  when  will  the 
new  moon  be  gone  that  we  may  sell  eorn,  and  the  Sab- 
bath, that  we  may  set  forth  wheat,  making  the  ephah 
small  and  the  shekel  great,  and  falsifying  the  balances  by 
deceit  %  That  we  may  buy  the  poor  for  silver,  and  the 
needy  for  a  pair  of  shoes,  yea,  and  sell  the  refuse  of  the 
wheat  1  The  Lord  hath  sworn  by  the  excellency  of  Ja- 
cob, surely,  1  will  never  forget  any  of  their  works.  Shall 
not  the  land  tremble  for  this,  and  every  one  mourn  that 
dwelleth  therein! — Chap.  viii.  4-8. 

MicAH  was  cotemporary  with  Isaiah  and  Hosea  "  in  the 
days  of  Jotbam,  Ahaz,  and  Hezekiah,  kings  of  Judah," 
and  he  prophesied  "  concerning  Samariah  and  Jerusalem." 

"  Woe  to  them  that  devise  iniquity,  and  work  evil  upon 
their  beds  %  When  the  morning  is  light  they  practice  it, 
because  it  is  in  the  power  of  their  hand.  And  they  cov- 
et fields,  and  take  them  by  violence,  and  houses,  and  take 
them  away  ;  so  they  oppress  a  man  and  his  house,  even 
a  man  and  his  heritage.  Therefore,  thus  saith  the  Lord, 
Behold  against  this  family  do  I  devise  an  evil,  from  which 
ye  shall  not  remove  your  necks,  neither  shaU  ye  go  haugh- 
tily j  for  this  time  is  evil." — Chap.  ii.  1-3. 

"  And  I  said.  Hear,  I  pray  you,  O  heads  of  Jacob,  and 
ye  princes  of  the  house  of  Israel :  Is  it  not  for  you  to 
know  judgment  1  Who  hate  the  good,  and  love  the  evil, 
who  pluck  off  their  skin  from  off  them,  and  their  flesh 
from  off  their  bones  ;  who  also  eat  the  flesh  of  my  peo- 
ple, and  flay  their  skin  from  off  them,  and  they  break 
their  bones,  and  chop  them  in  pieces  as  for  the  pot,  and 
as  flesh  within  the  cauldron.     Then  shall  they  cry  unto 


DEMOCRACY  OF  CHRISTIANITY.  319 

the  Lord,  but  He  will  not  hear  them,  He  will  even  hide 
His  face  from  them  at  that  time,  as  they  behaved  them- 
selves ill  in  their  doings." — Chap.  iii.  1-4. 

This  picture  of  Israel  in  the  times  of  Micah  may  not 
only  reveal  to  us  the  moral  causes  of  the  dispersion  that 
followed,  but  may  likewise  furnish  us  with  a  commenta- 
ry upon  the  prediction  of  Samuel  concerning  the  evils 
that  would  come  upon  the  people  in  consequence  of  their 
rejecting  Jehovah  and  the  institutions  He  provided  for 
them,  by  desiring  a  king.  Connecting  together  all  these, 
we  may  see  how  the  sin  reproved  by  Samuel  was  the  be- 
ginning of  a  series  of  transgressions  and  chastisements, 
oppressions  and  retributions,  terminating,  at  length,  in  the 
extinction  of  the  ten  tribes.  To  the  mass  of  the  people, 
it  may  have  been  judgment  mingled  with  mercy,  as  we 
can  hardly  conceive  that  their  heathen  conquerors  could 
have  been  more  cruel  and  despotic  towards  them  than, 
according  to  the  representation  of  Micah,  were  their  own 
native  kings'?     And  how  was  it  in  Judahl 

"  Hear  this,  1  pray  you,  ye  heads  of  the  house  of  Ja- 
cob, and  princes  of  the  house  of  Israel,  that  abhor  judg- 
ment, and  pervert  all  equity.  They  build  up  Zion  with 
blood,  and  Jerusalem  with  iniquity.  The  heads  thereof 
judge  for  reward,  and  the  priests  thereof  teach  for  hire, 
and  the  prophets  thereof  divine  for  money,  yet  they  will 
lean  upon  the  Lord  and  say,  Is  not  the  Lord  among  us  ? 
None  evil  can  come  upon  us !  Therefore  shall  Zion,  for 
your  sake,  be  plowed  as  a  field,  and  Jerusalem  shall  be- 
come heaps,  and  the  mountain  of  the  house  as  the  high 
places  of  the  forest." — v.  9-12. 

''The  prince  asketh,  and  the  judge  asketh,  for  a  re- 
ward, and  the  great  man,  he  uttereth  his  mischievous  de- 
sire. So  they  wrap  it  up.  The  best  of  them  is  as  a 
brier  ;  the  most  upright  of  them  is  as  a  thorn  hedge  :  the 
day  of  thy  watchmen  and  thy  visitation  cometh,  now  shall 
be  their  perplexity." — Chap.  vii.  3-4. 

Habakkuk  also  "  predicted  the  Chaldean  invasion  and 
its  terrible  efiects."  His  prophecy  opens  with  a  brief 
statement  of  the  moral  causes  of  it. 

"  The  burden   which  Habakkuk  the  prophet  did  see 


o20  DEMOCRACY  OF  CHRISTIANITY'. 

0  Lord  how  long  shall  I  cry,  and  thourwilt  not  hear. 
Even  cry  out  unto  thee,  of  violence,  and  thou  wilt  not 
save.  Why  dost  thou  show  me  iniquity,  and  cause  me 
to  behold  grievance'?  For  spoiling  and  violence  are  be- 
fore me,  and  there  are  that  raise  up  strife  and  contention. 
Therefore  the  law  is  slacked,  and  judgment  doth  never 
go  forth  :  for  the  wicked  doth  compass  about  the  right- 
ous,  therefore  wrong  judgment  proceedeth." — Ghap.  i.  1-4?. 

"  He  inquired  why  his  lot  was  cast  on  such  evil  times, 
that  he  was  forced  lo  dwell  among  robbers  and  oppress- 
ors, and  to  witness  discords  and  virulent  contentions. 
These  things  were  become  so  common,  and  the  rulers 
were  so  addicted  to  bribery,  that  the  law  lay  dormant, 
and  the  execution  of  it  was  entirely  relaxed,  so  that  wick- 
ed men  circumvented  and  defrauded  the  righteous  with 
impunity,  for  either  no  sentence  could  be  obtained,  or  it 
proved  an  iniquitous  decision.  Such  was  the  wretched 
condition  of  Judah,  and  it  was  in  consequence  of  idolatry, 
impiety,  and  hypocrisy  in  religion." — Scott. 

The  prophet  proceeds,  immediately,  to  announce  the 
divine  retributions  impending  on  account  of  this  condi- 
tion of  the  judiciary,  and  the  iniquities  connected  with  it. 

"  Behold,  ye,  among  the  heathen,  and  regard,  and  won- 
der marvellously,  for  1  will  work  a  work  in  your  day, 
which  ye  will  not  believe,  though  it  be  told  you.     For  lo! 

1  raise  up  the  Chaldeans,  that  bitter  and  hasty  nation, 
which  shall  march  through  the  breadth  of  the  land,  to  pos- 
sess the  dwelling  places  that  are  not  theirs." — v.  5-6. 

Zephaniah  prophesied  "  in  the  days  of  Josiah,  the  son 
of  Amon,  king  of  Judah.  He  severely  reproved  the  wick- 
edness of  the  Jews,  and  predicted  the  Chaldean  invasion 
and  its  fatal  effects." 

"  Woe  to  her  that  is  filthy  and  polluted — to  the  op- 
pressing city.  She  obeyed  not  the  voice,  she  received 
not  correction,  she  trusted  not  in  the  Lord,  she  drew  not 
near  to  her  God.  Her  princes  within  her  are  roaring 
lions — her  judges  are  evening  wolves  ;  they  gnaw  not  the 
bones  till  the  morrow.  Her  prophets  are  light  and  treach- 
erous persons,  her  priests  have  polluted  the  sanctuary, 
they  have  done  violence  to  the  law." — Chap.  iii.  l—i. 

"Jerusalem  was  become  filthy  and  polluted,  she  was 
gluttonous,  luxurious,  and  infamous  for  all  kinds  of  wick- 
edness,  especially  for  oppression  and  violence." — Scott. 


GEMOORACV  Oy  CHRISTIANITY.  521 

Thus  copious  and  harmonious  are  the  testimonies  of 
the  Hebrew  prophets  in  respect  to  the  moral  features  of 
their  times,  and  especially  concerning  the  prevailing  sins 
on  account  of  which  God  gave  up  Samaria  and  Judah  into 
the  hands  of  the  Assyrians  and  the  Chaldeans. 

While  the  prophecies  furnish  an  instructive  commenta- 
ry upon  the  histories  of  Israel  and  Judah,  both  these, 
united,  illustrate  the  institutions  of  Moses,  and  reveal, 
more  fully,  the  spirit  that  pervaded  them.  It  was  the 
spirit  of  justice,  equality,  equity,  humanity,  and  common 
brotherhood,  under  the  protection  and  guidance  of  the 
Common  Father  of  all — a  spirit  opposed  to  all  arrogance, 
usurpation,  caste,  monopoly,  inequality,  oppression,  and 
autocratic  domination.  As  this  spirit  declined,  the  insti- 
tutions adapted  to  its  manifestation  were  corrupted,  aban- 
doned, and  succeeded  by  monarchichal  arrangements, 
first  limited,  then  absolute,  and  terminating,  at  length,  in 
a  state  of  society  not  to  be  endured  either  by  man  or  his 
Maker,  and  rendering  the  national  overthrow  at  once  a 
relief  and  a  retribution,  terrible  to  the  so-called  higher 
classes  of  society,  but  merciful,  in  the  long  run,  to  the 
victims  of  their  oppressions,  nay,  to  themselves,  or  their 
children,  who  were  thus  taught  lessons  which  they  could 
not  otherwise  be  made  to  comprehend.  The  kingdoms 
of  Israel  and  Judah  supply  not  the  only  exemplifications 
of  this  feature  of  the  divine  government  over  the  nations. 

At  first  sight  it  may  seem  strange  and  anomalous  that 
the  reigns  of  such  comparatively  just  and  pious  kings  as 
Hezekiah  and  Josiah  should  have  furnished  the  scenes  of 
such  pictures  as  arc  drawn  by  Isaiah,  Hosea,  Amos,  nnd 
Micah.  But  a  little  reflection,  and  a  comparison  with 
other  historical  facts  will  convince  us  of  the  credibility 
and  even  congruity  of  their  representations.  In  modern 
times  we  find  that  the  personal  character  of  the  monarch 
furnishes  but  a  slender  security  against  the  corruptions 
of  his  court  and  the  tyranny  of  his  administration.  The 
inherent  mischiefs  of  a  vicious  system  of  government  are 


322  DEMOCRAOY  OF  CHRISTIANITY. 

not  to  be  eradicated  by  the  strength,  wisdom,  and  good« 
ness  of  any  mere  man,  the  very  wisest,  the  *'  man  after 
God's  own  heart,''  a  Solomon,  a  David.  Nor  do  the  le- 
gitimate fruits  of  such  faulty  systems  come  to  maturity 
in  a  day.  Long  accumulating  abuses  that  have  grown 
up  under  worse  men  may  culminate  and  even  produce  an 
explosion  under  a  comparatively  well  meaning  monarch, 
a  Louis  XVI.  Among  the  kings  of  England  few,  perhaps, 
have  sustained  a  less  censurable  general  character  than 
George  III ;  yet  our  American  Declaration  of  lndepend» 
ence  brands  him  as  a  tyrant.  The  reputation  of  general 
integrity  has  commonly  been  awarded  to  Pittj  but  his 
administration — every  measure  of  which,  perhaps,  could 
command  the  vote  ot  even  a  Wilberforce — was  the 
terror  and  dread  of  the  masses,  and  Great  Britain  and 
Ireland  are  staggering  under  the  infliction,  to  this  very 
hour.  Who  can  say  that  Josiah  or  that  Hezekiah  was 
s  uperior  in  wisdom  or  goodness  to  some  of  these  ?  Or  who 
can  say  that  an  Isaiah,  a  Hosea,  an  Amos,  or  a  Micah,  had 
they  lived  in  Great  Britain,  in  the  last  or  present  cen= 
tury,  would  not  have  drawn  pictures  and  uttered  denun- 
ciations, very  nearly  akin  to  those  they  have  recorded 
concerning  Judah  and  Jerusalem '?  Our  American  presi- 
dents— elected  monarchs  we  might  well  nigh  call  them — 
but  we  will  not  needlessly  lift  the  veil.  We  all  know  what 
lies  under  it,  that  m.akes  an  American  in  Eutope  blush  and 
hang  his  head  for  shame.  Nay,  there  is  no  veil  to  be  removed 
—the  abomination  can  not  be  hid  !  The  Hebrew  proph- 
ets already  quoted  can  not  be  read  without  reviving  the 
picture.  Both  Christianity  and  Democrocy  may  be  blas- 
phemed on  account  of  it,  but  neither  of  them  are  in  fault. 
As  well  m.ight  Moses  and  the  law  of  the  jubilee  be  held 
responsible  for  the  oppressions  rebuked  by  the  prophets. 

Returning  to  the  point  under  review,  the  best  kings  of 
Judah  could  not  or  did  not  secure  to  the  people  a  just  gov- 
ernment. We  cite  her  historians  and  her  prophets  as 
witnesses  in  proof  of  this  statement.     The  advocates  of 


DEMOCRACY   OF   CHRISTIANITY.  323 

kingly  power  must  dispose  of  the  fact  as  they  best  can. 
For  their  specimens  of  kingly  protection,  of  god-like  ac- 
complishment, of  heroic  achievement,  in  that  direction, 
they  must  look  elsewhere  than  to  the  page  of  the  Hebrew 
history.  At  least,  the  picture  must  be  taken  with  impor- 
tant qualifications.  Our  own  inference  is  that  man  is  but 
a  weak  worm,  at  best,  ill  qualified  to  exercise  kingly  pow" 
er  over  his  brother  man — that  civil  power  is  safer  in  the 
hands  of  the  masses,  brutish  as  they  may  be,  than  in  the 
hands  of  any  one  man,  irresponsible  to  his  brethren,  and 
liable  to  innumerable  influences,  unperceived  by  himself, 
but  visible  to  others,  that  might  lead  him  astray — safer 
in  the  bands  of  the  people  at  large  than  in  the  hands  of  a 
few,  for  similar  reasons;  in  other  words,  that  the  demo- 
cratic judiciary  of  the  Hebrew  commonwealth,  as  direct- 
ed by  Infinite  Wisdom,  and  revealed  by  Moses,  was  vast- 
ly preferable  to  the  arrangements  that  superseded  them 
in  consequence  of  the  rebellion  of  the  children  of  Israel 
in  desiring  a  king. 

The  reader  has  now  before  him  the  substance  of  what 
we  have  to  present  from  the  historical  records  of  the  Old 
Testament— as  illustrated  by  its  prophecies — in  evidence 
of  the  democratic  tendencies  and  bearings  of  the  religion 
of  the  Bible.  All  this  history,  it  is  to  be  borne  in  mind, 
is  of  a  very  ancient  date,  so  that  the  facts  recorded  in  it, 
transpired  in  season  to  have  have  had  an  important  influ- 
ence on  the  character,  the  civilization,  the  literature,  the 
institutions,  and  the  destiny  of  the  surrounding  nations  of 
antiquity  and  consequently  upon  the  whole  civilized  world, 
down  to  the  present  time,  and  so  onward  to  all  future 
ages.  Ileroditus,  who  used  to  be  called  the  father  of  his- 
tory, is  supposed  to  have  been  cotemporary  with  Ezra 
and  Nehemiah,"  the  latest  of  the  Old  Testament  histori- 
ans, '*  and  all  that  he  collected  concerning  times  long  pre- 
ceding his  own  is  generally  allowed  to  be  of  doubtful  au- 
thority, and  in  a  great  measure  fabulous." 

The  Mosaic  commonwealth,    as   already   noticed,  wae 


3*24  deaJocracy  of  cHRis'riANiry. 

organized  many  centuries  before  the  times  of  Lycurgus 
or  Solon,  or  the  beginning  of  any  of  the  ancient  republics. 
According  to  the  generally  received  chronology,  the  law 
was  given  at  Sinail491  years  before  Christ.  The  death 
of  Joshua  was  1426  years  B.  C.  Lycurgus  made  Sparta 
a  republic  884  years  B»  C.     Solon    flourished   594   years 

B.  C.  Aristotle  was  born  384  years  B>  C.  Rome  became 
a  republic  509  years  B.  C.  Zoroastres  appeared  before 
the  court  of  Persia  492  B.  C.     Heroditus  was  born  484  B. 

C.  Plato  v/as  born  428  years  B.  C.  Socrates  was  put 
to  death,  at  Athens,  399  B.  C.  Homer  was  born  900  B. 
C.  The  seige  of  Troy  commenced  1183  B,  C,  as  is  gen- 
erally supposed,  though  some  accounts  make  it  much  ear- 
lier. The  Old  Testament  history  terminates  with  the 
close  of  the  book  of  Nehemiah,  431  B.  C.  Malachi,  the 
last  of  the  prophets,  is  supposed  to  have  written  397  B.  C. 

These  few  dates  will  serve  to  convey  some  impression 
of  the  remote  antiquity-  of  the  period  we  have  been  con- 
sidering. A  glance  at  a  map  of  the  renowned  nations  of 
antiquity,  exhibiting  Palestine  in  the  very  midst  of  them, 
will  show  how  necessarily  the  events  we  have  been  con- 
sidering must  have  been  known,  more  or  less,  to  all  those 
nations.  Add  to  this  the  very  remarkable  connexion  of 
the  Hebrew  history  with  the  history  of  all  those  nations, 
and  the  chain  of  the  communication  will  appear  still  more 
clearly.  The  successive  conquests  of  Judea  by  almost  all 
those  nations,  either  during  or  after  the  Old  Testsment 
period,  and  especially  the  emigration  or  dispersion  of  the 
Jews  into  all  those  countries,  must  have  ensured  among  the 
learned,  a  general  knowledge  of  the  Hebrew  religion  and 
institutions  throughout  the  then  civilized  world.  Under 
direction  of  Ptolomy  Philadelphus  the  Hebrew  laws  were 
translated  into  the  Greek  tongue  277  years  B.  C,  but  must 
have  been  known  among  the  learned  much  earlier.  Plato 
is  supposed  to  have  been  acquainted  with  the  Hebrew 
Scriptures,  and  Zoroastres  appears  to  have  known  some 
thingof  the  laws  of  Moses. 


DEMOCllACY  Of  tjElKiSTlA  S'iTVT.  325 


CHAPTER  XXIil. 

OF   JEWISH    HISTORY    FROM    THE    CLOSE    OF     THE    OLD    TO    THE 
COBIMENCEMENT    OF    THE    NEW    TESTAMENT    RECORDS. 

Of  this  period,  comprising  about  four  centuries,  the  records 
of  the  Jewish  nation  are  but  scant}^  and  in  some  respects  in- 
distinct and  uncertain.  The  moral  characteristics  and  pohtical 
condition  of  the  people,  during  some  portions  of  this  period,  can 
be  but  imperfectly  ascertained.  The  books  of  the  Apocrypha, 
in  some  measure  fabulous,  the  history  of  Josephus,  and  the  his- 
tories of  the  surrounding  nations  supply  us  with  the  only  ori- 
ginal data  on  which  we  can  rely.  Dean  Prideaux,  in  his  "  Con- 
nexions" has  selected,  perhaps,  the  most  important  particulars, 
and  some  other  writers  have  furnished  condensed  statements 
of  the  principal  facts  of  this  portion  of  history.  We  glean, 
hastily,  a  few  items,  the  only  ones  now  within  our  reach,  that 
seem  to  bear  upon  the  subject  of  our  present  investigations. 

Alexander  of  Macedon,  by  his  conquest  of  Persia,  became 
master  of  Judea,  ^vhich  was  then  a  province  of  that  empire. 
He  "  granted  to  the  Jews  the  freedom  of  their  country,  laws, 
and  religion."  At  his  death,  324  years  B.  C,  his  dominions 
were  divided,  and  Judea  fell  to  the  share  of  Ptolemy,  along 
with  Egypt,  L}'bia,  Arabia  and  Coele-Syria.  As  the  seat  of 
his  o-overnment  was  Egypt,  Judea  became  a  province  of  that 
kingdom,  in  whic;li,  so  many  centuries  previous,  the  Hebrews 
had  been  held  in  bondage.  But  as  this  division  of  the  empire 
was  effected  by  a  struggle  between  the  rival  aspirants,  and  as 
the  Jews  did  not  submit  to  Ptolemy  without  attempting  a  de- 
fence, they  were  treated  with  rigor,  and  not  a  few  of  them 
were  carried  captive  into  Egypt,  and  reduced  to  bondage. 
Thenceforward  Judea  was  contested  ground  between  Egypt 
and  Syria,  and  for  a  long  time  it  was  under  the  dominion  of 
the  Syrian  kings.  The  Jews  appear  to  have  exercised  their 
religion,  under  a  succession  of  high  priests  ui.til  the  perscca- 
tion  of  xVntiochus  Epiphanes,  about  l70  years  before  Chi^at, 

15 


326  DEMOCRACY   OF  CHRISTiANITr, 

when  he  caused  the  sacrifices  to  cease,  and  "  there  scarcely 
remained  any  signs  of  their  peculiar  civil  or  religious  polity  * 

These  persecutions  roused  the  Jews  to  revolt,  and  they  suc- 
ceeded, under  the  generalship  of  J  idas  Maccabeas,  in  driving 
the  Syrians  from  the  country,  166  years  B.  C.  Antiochus 
lost  his  life  in  this  contest,  and  in  a  battle  with  one  of  his  suc- 
cessors, Judas  also  was  killed,  and  was  succeeded  by  his  broth- 
er Jonathan,  153  years  B,  C, 

This  laid  the  foundation  of  a  marked  revolution  in  the  gov- 
emment  of  the  Jews;  in  which  its  remaining  democratic  fea- 
tures were  displaced  bv  those  of  a  monarchical  character.  The 
brothers  of  Judas  Maccabeas  "changed  the  republican  gov- 
ernment into  a  rigorous  monarchy,"f  "  John  Hyrcanus,  son 
of  Simon  Maccabeas,  uniting  in  his  person  the  office  of  higli 
priest  and  generalissimo  of  the  aniiy,  subdued  the  enemies  of 
his  country,  ceased  to  pay  homage  to  the  kings  of  Syria — 135 
years  B.  C.  He  reigned  28  years.  Ilis  sous  assumed  the 
title,  as  well  as  the  power  of  kings,  and  the  high  priesthood 
remained  in  his  family,  though  not  in  the  person  of  the  mon- 
arch. His  descendants  are  distinguished  in  the  history  of  the 
Jewish  nation,  by  the  appellation  of  the  Asmonean  dynasty, 
which  continued  about  126  years/'  But  before  the  close  of 
this  period,  Judea  came  under  the  power  of  the  Romans. 
Pompey  besieged  and  took  Jerusalem,  about  63  years  B.  C, 
After  several  revolutions,  Herod  the  Great  was  declared  king 
of  Judea  by  a  decree  of  the  Roman  senate,  37  years  B.  C. 

Such,  in  brief,  are  the  outlines  of  the  history.  On  a  survey 
of  it  we  cannot  but  remark  a  decline  and  a  catastrophe  analo- 
gous to  that  of  the  history  terminating  in  the  Babylonian  cap- 
tivity. Commencing  with  the  Mosaic  commonwealth,  as  it  was 
left  by  Joshua,  we  found  a  general  decline  of  the  spirit  of  lib- 
erty and  of  habits  of  virtue,  down  to  the  subversion  of  the 
commonwealth;  then  through  the  successive  reio-ns  of  the 
kings,  to  the  Chaldean  in\asion.  In  like  manner,  from  the 
imperfect  restoration  of  the   commonwealth   under  Ezra  and 


Robbini'  Outlines,  p,  111.        t  Robbins'  Outlines,  [).  125. 


DEMOCEACY  OF  CHRISTIANITY.  327 

Nehemiab,  we  notice  a  corresponding  decline,  until  the  sub- 
version of  the  republican  government  by  a  monarcliy  under 
the  Maccabees;  and  then  a  further  decline  until  the  period  of 
Herod.  The  partial  and  limited  reformation,  under  Hezekiah 
and  Josiah,  could  not  avert  the  Chaldean  conquest.  Nor  did 
the  preaching  of  John  the  Baptist,  of  Jesus,  and  his  apostles, 
reform  the  rulers  or  the  mass  of  the  nation,  or  avert  the  de- 
struction of  Jerusalem.  The  decline  of  true  religion,  and  the 
decline  of  the  spirit  of  liberty  and  the  usages  of  democracy,  in 
both  cases,  went  hand  in  hand.  As  the  spirit  of  religion  and 
the  institutions  of  democracy  did  not  attain  the  same  degrees 
of  ascendancy  under  Ezra  and  Nehemiah  that  they  did  under 
Moses  and  Joshua,  so  a  shorter  period  of  time  served  to  cor- 
rupt and  displace  them,  and  a  deeper  degradation  and  a  more 
dreadful  and  permanent  retribution  and  overthrow  were  thus 
speedily  reached. 

A  degree  of  prosperity  was  enjoyed  under  the  sovereigns  of 
Persia,  even  after  the  times  of  Cyrus,  and  under  Alexander 
the  Great.  But  from  the  time  of  his  death,  the  judgments 
predicted  by  the  later  prophets  began  to  be  experienced. 

Dependant  as  the  Jews  were  upon  foreign  governments, 
during  the  greater  part  of  this  period  (from  Nehemiah  to  the 
times  of  Christ)  they  maintained,  nevertheless,  for  the  most 
part,  a  local  government  of  their  own,  and  that  government 
corresponded  in  its  general  character  and  its  distinctive  fea- 
tures, with  the  prevailing  religion  of  the  times. 

One  marked  indication  of  religious  declension  and  of  a  de- 
parture from  the  institutions  of  IMoses,  was  the  secular  power 
connected  with  the  high  priesthood,  and  the  strife  of  rival  as- 
pirants for  that  office,  some  of  whom  cared  little  or  nothing 
for  the  religious  worship  connected  with  it,  but  only  for  the 
honors  and  the  emoluments  of  civil  office.  This  fact  is  noticed 
by  Dean  Prideaux  in  respect  to  Menelaus  who  supplanted  his 
brother  Jason  and  got  into  the  priesthood  by  outbidding  him 
at  the  court  of  their  heathen  king,  Antiochus  Epiphanos,  172 
years  B.  C.  Jason  himself  had  previously  bought  the  high 
priesthood  of  Antiochus,  supplanted  his  brother  Onias,  and  in- 


328  DEMOCRACY  OF  CHRISTIANITY. 

trocluced  idolatrous  observances  into  the  worship  at  the  temple. 
In  this  connection  the  historian  add& — "  For  at  that  time,  and 
for  some  ages  past,  the  high  priest  of  the  Jews,  had,  first  un- 
der the  Persian,  and  afterwards  under  the  Macedonian  kino-s, 
the  sole  temporal  government  of  the  nation.  This  last  most 
certainly  was  derived  from  the  king,  and  this  gave  him  the 
handle  to  dispose  of  both,  though  the  priesthood  itself  was  only 
derived  from  that  divine  authority  under  which  it  acted." 
— Prideaux,  vol  ii.  p.  111. 

This  arrangement,  as  Dean  Prideaux  very  innocently  ob- 
serves, was  much  the  same  as  is  now  witnessed  in  our  modern 
Christian  states!  He  might  have  added,  perhaps,  that  this  il- 
lustrious and  pious  example  of  the  heathen  kings,  supplied  the 
earliest  precedent  for  modern  church  and  state  unions  that 
appears  on  the  Hebrew  records,  unless  some  faint  appearances 
of  it  mioht  be  detected  under  the  kino-s  of  Israel  or  Judah  be- 
fore  the  Chaldean  invasion.  In  either  case,  the  innovation 
was  without  a  divine  sanction,  and  its  corrupting  influence  and 
disastrous  eff'ects  among  the  Jews  are  manifest  and  undeniable. 
By  the  prophet  Jeremiah,  as  before  cited,  God  complained  of 
the  false  prophets  for  favoring  the  assumed  authority  of  the 
priests,  in  matters  never  committed  to  them,  (Jer.  v.  31,)  and 
the  demand  was  urged — "  What  will  ye  do  in  the  end  there- 
of"  ?  i.  e.  What  must  be  the  result  of  such  a  course  of  con- 
duct ?    The  se  quel  of  the  J  ewish  history  may  furnish  the  answer. 

Josephus  informs  that  Jonathan,  the  brother  and  successor 
of  Judas  Maccabeas,  was  "ordained  high  priest  of  the  Jews" 
by  Alexander,  the  son  and  successor  of  Antiochus  Epiphanes. 
(Antiq.  Book  xiii.  Chap,  ii.)  From  the  same  authority  we 
learn  that  on  the  death , of  Jonathan  "  the  Jez^^^  made  Simon 
Maccabeas  their  general  and  high  priest."  At  this  period  the 
Jews  aspired  to  manage  their  affairs  independently  of  foreign 
control ;  and  all  along  the  previous  history  the  people  appear 
to  have  had  some  voice  in  the  transaction  of  public  business, 
imder  their  high  priests.  After  the  death  of  Simon  and  the 
accession  of  his  son  John  Hyrcanus  to  the  high  priesthood,  a 
league  was  made  or  rather  renewed,  with  the  Romans,  through 


DEMOCRACY  OF  CHRISTIANirV.  329 

an  embassage  sent  by  Hyrcanus.  The  documents  of  the  Ro- 
man senate,  on  this  occasion,  as  copied  by  Josephus,  recognize 
the  ambassadors  as  having  been  sent  by  "  the  people  of  the 
Jews,"  and  tlie  league  of  friendship  was  with  "  these  good 
men,  who  were  sent  by  a  good  and  friendly  people'^ — all  which 
marks  the  popular  element  in  the  Jewish  government  at  that 
time,  at  least  in  theory,  an  evident  relic  of  the  ancient  Mosaic 
commonwealth,  though  now  lying  in  fragmentary  ruins.  But 
even  these  remains  of  democratic  freedom  were  about  to  be 
displaced  by  the  ascendancy  of  autocratic  power. 

The  military  successes  of  the  Maccabees,  in  throwing  off  the 
yoke  of  foreign  dominion  for  a  brief  period,  resulted  in  the 
deeper  degradation  of  the  Jewish  people,  in  the  end.  Not 
content  with  acting  on  the  defensive,  these  commanders  push- 
ed their  arms  into  the  neighboring  provinces,  "  infested  Syria 
with  great  wars,"  took  Samaria,  and  utterly  demolished  it, 
made  war  upon  Ptolemy  of  Egypt,  overthrew  Gaza,  took  She- 
chem,  destroyed  the  temple  on  Mount  Gerizim,  and  conquered 
Iturea,  Idumea,  Gidead,  and  Moab.  How  much  the  splendor 
of  these  military  exploits  dazzled  the  Jewish  people  and  blinded 
their  eyes  to  the  danger  of  permitting  so  much  power  in  the 
hands  of  their  sacerdotal  generals,  it  is  difficult  to  determine. 
They  were  presented  with  the  sad  alternative  of  exposure  to 
foreign  domination  on  the  one  hand,  or  of  utter  subjugation  by 
their  own  native  princes  and  apparent  deliverers  on  the  other. 
The  latter  horn  of  the  dilemma,  whether  by  their  own  selec- 
tion or  otherwise,  appears  to  have  been,  for  a  season,  their  des- 
tiny !  The  valor  of  Judas  Maccabeas  and  the  statesmanship, 
wisdom,  and  goodness  of  John  Hyrcanus  have  been  celebrated 
by  historians,  but  their  measures  laid  the  foundation  for  the 
subversion  of  the  remains  of  Jewish  liberty. 

"After  the  death  of  John  Hyrcanus  "his  son  Aristobulus, 
as  being  eldest,  succeeded  his  father,  both  ia  the  office  of  high 
piiest,  and  also  in  that  of  supreme  governor  of  the  country, 
and  as  soon  as  he  Avas  settled  in  them,  he  put  the  diadem  on 
his  head,  and  assumed  the  title  of  king,  and  he  was  the  first 
that  did  so  in  that  land,  since  the  Babylonish  captivity." — Pri- 
deaux,  il.  241. 


330  DEMOORAOY  OF  CHRISTIANITY. 

This  was  107  years  B.  C.  The  reign  of  Aristobulus  was 
marked  hy  many  atrocities.  He  starved  his  own  mother  to 
death  in  a  dungeon,  and  treacherously  assassinated  his  brother 
Antigonus. 

Thenceforward  the  government  of  Judea,  under  a  succession 
kings  of  the  Asmonean  dj-nasty  was,  for  the  most  part,  an  un- 
mitigated despotism,  so  long  as  the  sovereign  power  remained 
in  their  hands,  and  (under  sufferance  of  the  Romans)  quite 
down  to  the  times  of  Herod.  This  period  has  been  designa- 
ted by  historians  as  "  the  profane  and  tyrannical  Jewish  mon- 
archy, first  of  the  Asmoneans  or  Maccabees,  and  then  of  Herod 
the  Great,  the  Idumean,  till  the  coming  of  the  Messiah."  (See 
Note  to  Josephus,by  Whiston.)  Hear  also  Strabo's  testimony 
on  this  occasion — b.  xvi.  pp.  '761-772 — "  Those,'*  says  he,  "that 
succeeded  Moses,  continued  for  some  time  in  earnest,  both  in 
righteous  actions  and  in  piety,  Vut  after  a  while  there  were 
others  that  took  upon  them  the  high  priesthood ;  at  first  su- 
perstitious, and  afterwards  tyrannical  persons.  *  *  And 
when  it  openly  appeared  that  the  government  was  become  ty- 
rannical, Alexander  was  the  first  that  set  liimself  up  for  a  king 
instead  of  a  priest ;  and  his  sons  were  Hyrcanus  and  Astrobu- 
tus." 

"All  in  agreement,"  says  Whiston,  "with  Josephus  except 
this,  that  Strabo  omits  ihQ  first  king  Astrobolus  who  reigned 
but  a  single  year,  and  seems  hardly  to  have  come  to  his  knowl- 
edge." 

It  is  easy  to  see  that  after  the  remaining  democratic  usages 
and  liberties  of  the  Jewish  people  had  been  subverted  under 
a  dynasty  of  Jewish  kings  they  would  not  be  likely  to  be  re- 
stored or  respected  under  the  reign  of  foreign  conquerors  who 
cared  nothing  for  their  polity  or  their  religion.  So  that  if  the 
Jews  gained  any  thing,  for  a  time,  b}^  the  deliverances  from 
foreign  control  achieved  for  them  by  the  Maccabees,  it  was  at 
the  expense  of  civil  liberty,  and  they  lost  whatever  advantages 
they  had  gained  when  they  fell  under  the  government  of 
Herod;  and  without  regaining  the  civil  liberties  of  which  the 
family  of  their  heroic  protectors  had  deprived  them,  by  the 


DEMOCRACY  OF    CHRISTIANITY.  331 

concentratuui,  within  and  among  themselves,  of  all  the  powers 
of  the  nation,  ecclesiastical,  militaiy,  and  civil,  in  utter  con- 
tempt of  the  usages  of  the  ancient  commonwealtli,  and  the  in- 
stitutions of  Moses,  which  knew  of  no  such  divorce  of  civil  gov- 
ernment or  of  military  power  from  the  people — no  such  cen- 
tralized powers,  either  military,  ecclesiastical  or  civil — no  sucli 
union  of  those  powers  as  was  witnessed  under  the  Asmonean 
kings. 

The  mischief,  let  it  be  distinctl}^  understood,  did  not  he  nor 
originate  in  the  mere  fact  that  the  same  person  who  held  the 
high  priesthood  happened  to  hold  likewise  the  chief  magistra- 
cy of  the  state,  if  designated,  either  by  God,  or  by  the  people, 
to  do  so,  for  the  time  being — but  it  did  lie  in  the  facts  that  the 
office  of  the  high  priesthood  was  understood  to  confer,  to  se- 
cure, or  to  include,  within  and  of  itself,  ex  officio,  the  supreme 
civil  power — that  the  chief  magistracy  was  understood  to  in- 
clude or  to  confer  the  priestly  prerogative,  or .  that  the  chief 
magistrate  controlled  the  appointment  of  high  priest,  or  that 
the  priesthood  and  the  chief  magistracy  were  held  as  the  mo- 
nopoly of  a  favored  family,  without  any  such  appointment  by 
God ;  and  without  any  periodical  election  by  the  people,  and 
was  therefore  an  assumed,  an  usurped  power,  its  foundations 
laid  in  inequality,  injustice,  and  arrogancy  in  the  beginning- 
It  is  one  thing  for  the  priest  to  be  eligible  to  civil  office,  by  ap- 
pointment of  God,  or  by  vote  of  the  people,  from  time  to  time ; 
quite  another  thing  for  the  priesthood  to  claim  civil  office  with- 
out leave  obtained  either  of  God  or  man.  It  is  one  thing  for 
a  civil  magistrate,  in  the  exercise  of  his  essential  rights,  as  a 
man,  or  as  a  true  worshipper,  to  communicate  to  his  fellow 
men  religious  instruction,  or  take  a  part  in  public  acts  of  devo- 
tion ;  it  is  quite  another  thing  for  civil  rulers,  as  such,  to  claim 
the  forcible  control  of  the  nation's  religion,  the  exclusive  power 
of  appointing  religious  teachers,  and  the  support  of  them  out 
of  the  national  purse. 

How  skilfully  and  minutely  the  ecclesiastical  polity  of  the 
Asmonean  kings  had  adjusted  itself,  during  that  brief  period, 
to  the  spirit  of  the  government,  it  were  useless  to  inquire.     Of 


332  DEMOCRACY    OF   CHRTSTIANITY. 

one  thing  we  may  be  assured.  If  those  who  are  searching  aft^r 
JcAvish  precedents  for  Christian  hierarchies  and  church  establish- 
ments, are  to  find  them  anywhere,  on  the  page  of  Jewish  his- 
tory,  they  must  search  for  them  in  tlie  Asmonean  records,  or  in 
the  archives  of  the  heathen  monarchs  of  Judea.  An  earher 
date  for  them,  they  will  find  it  difficult  to  authenticate,  unless, 
as  was  hinted  before,  they  claim  the  example  of  king  Ahab. 

Another  remark  is  in  place,  here.  The  prophetic  warnings 
of  Samuel,  on  the  accession  of  Saul,  the  first  king  of  the  He- 
brews, lose  none  of  their  pith,  and  point,  and  power,  by  being- 
brought  down  through  the  lapse  of  ages,  and  read  in  the  light 
of  what  Josephus  records  concerning  the  kings  of  the  Asmo- 
nean dynasty,  and  the  succeeding  reign  of  Herod.  That  ter- 
rible prediction  of  Malachi — "  For  behold  the  day  cometh  that 
shall  burn  as  an  oven" — has  been  referred  by  some  commen- 
tators to  this  period — b}^  others  to  the  destruction  of  Jerusa- 
lem, which  happened  soon  after.  Very  naturally  might  the- 
description  be  applied  to  them  both,  as  being  but  different. 
acts  in  the  same  retributive  drama. 


CHAPTER  XXIY.  -     * 

THE    CULMINATION    AND    THE    CATASTROPHE. 

If  the  Jews  were  not  cured,  by  this  time,  of  their  hero  wor- 
ship and  their  king  worship,  as  well  as  their  image  worship, 
it  was  not  because  tlie  lessons  divine  Providence  had  prepared 
for  them,  were  not  well  adapted  to  this  end,  and  as  weighty 
and  as  significant  as  any  people  could  be  expected  to  go 
through  with,  and  survive.  One  incident  related  by  Josephus 
conveys  the  impression  that  the  lesson  was  not  wholly  in  vain 
— that  it  was  learned  as  well  as  any  other  moral  or  religious 
lesson  could  be  or  was  learned,  by  a  generation  so  superstitious 


DEMOCRACY  OF  CHRISTIANITY.  333 

and  super ficial,  so  lij^pocritical  and  formal,  as  the  Je\yisli  reli- 
gionists, under  their  preletical  and  autocratic  church  and  state 
union,  had  now  become.  The  stor}^,  as  told  by  Josephus, 
runs  thus : 

"  But  now  Pilate,  the  procurator  of  Judea,  removed  the  ar- 
my from  Ccesaria  to  Jerusalem,  to  take  winter  quarters  there, 
in  order  to  abolish  the  Jewish  laws.  So  he  introduced  Ctesar's 
effigies,  which  were  upon  the  ensigns,  and  brought  them  into 
the  city,  v.hereas  our  law  forbids  the  ver}'-  making  of  imao-es, 
on  which  account  the  former  procurators  were  wont  to  make 
their  entry  into  the  city  with  such  ensigns  as  had  not  those 
ornaments.  Pilate  was  the  first  who  brought  those  imao-es  to 
Jerusalem  and  set  them  up  there,  which  was  done  without  the 
knowledge  of  the  people,  because  it  was  done  in  the  nio-ht 
time;  but  as  soon  as  they  knew  it,  they  came  in  multitudes  to 
Csesaria  and  interceded  with  Pilate  many  days  that  he  would 
remove  the  images,  and  when  he  would  not  grant  their  re- 
quests, because  this  would  tend  to  the  injury  of  Coesar,  while 
they  yet  persevered  in  their  request  on  the  sixth  day,  he  or- 
dered his  soldiers  to  have  their  weapons  privatel}^  while  he 
came  and  sat  upon  the  judgment  seat;  which  seat  was  so  pre- 
pared, in  the  open  place  of  the  city,  that  it  concealed  the  army 
that  lay  ready  to  oppress  them,  and  vrhen  the  Jews  petitioned 
him  again  he  gave  a  signal  to  the  sold  ers  to  encompass  them 
round,  and  threatened  that  their  punishment  should  be  no  less 
than  immediate  death,  unless  they  would  leave  off  disturbino- 
him  and  go  their  ways  home.  But  they  threw  themselves 
upon  the  ground,  and  laid  their  necks  bare,  and  said  they 
'would  take  their  death  very  willingly,  rather  than  the  wisdom 
of  their  laws  should  be  transgressed;  upon  which  Pilate  was 
deeply  affected  with  their  firm  resolution  to  keep  their  laws  in- 
violable, and  presently  commanded  the  images  to  be  carried 
back  from  Jerusalem  to  Cccsaria." — Jlniiq.  Book  xviii.  Chap.  iii. 

This  was  that  same  Pilate  who  was  persuaded  to  give  sen- 
tence of  condemnation  against  Jesus.  It  may  be  said  (but 
can  neither  be  proved  nor  disproved)  that  the  religionists  so 
zealous  against  these  images  were  the  same  in  person  or  in 
character  with  those  who  demanded  that  unjust  sentence.  It 
may  be  inferred  that  their  scruples  on  this  occasion,  were  hypo- 
critical or  frivolous,  superstitious  *or  factious,  akin  to  the  pre- 
tense of  conscientiously  hesitating  to  pay  tribute  to  Ccesar 
while  the  coin  containing  his  image  and  superscription  was 

15^ 


334  DEMOCRACY  OF  CHRISTIANITY. 

passing  current  among  them.  All  this  might  be  granted,  and 
yet  the  incident  may  afford  some  instruction  upon  the  subject 
of  our  inquiries,  nevertheless.  It  tells  us  that  even  down  to 
the  times  of  Augustus  Caesar,  the  honor,  the  dignity,  and  the 
interests  of  the  Roman  emperors  were  understood,  among 
their  subordinate  officials,  to  depend,  not  a  httle,  upon  such  a 
display  of  their  effigies  as  should  give  them  a  rank  among  the 
heathen  gods ;  that  it  was  equally  well  understood  that  the 
custom  was  in  violation  of  the  laws  of  the  Hebrews,  that  it 
must  be  stealthily  introduced,  or  violently  enforced.  Less  au- 
gust sovereigns  than  the  Caesars  had  claimed  divine  honors, 
down  to  the  century  preceding,  even  Antiochiis,  (as  Josephus 
relates.)  having  been  denominated  a  god,  though  assassinated 
by  order  of  Tyrphou. 

The  scruples  of  the  Jews  on  this  occasion,  whether  conscien- 
tious or  factioui}  whether  sincere  or  hypocritical,  whether  well 
founded  or  superstitious,  bear  testimony  to  the  fact  that,  from 
some  cause,  a  change  in  public  sentiment  had  taken  place 
among  them,  in  respect  both  to  the  use  of  images  and  the  ad- 
ulation of  monarchs.  At  some  points  in  the  Hebrew  histor}^ 
the  people  would  have  been  forward  to  set  up  such  images 
themselves,  as  a  matter  of  compliment  to  the  great  emperor 
who  ruled  over  them,  and  as  an  appendage  (symbolic  and  sub- 
ordinate no  doubt)  to  their  worship  of  Jehovah.  Thus  did 
they  with  their  golden  calf  in  the  wilderness.  Thus  did  they 
when  they  took  up  the  star  of  the  god  Remphan.  Thus  did 
the  Samaritan  emigrants  from  Assyria  and  Babylon,  when 
they  feared  Jehovah  and  served  their  own  gods ;  and  thus  did 
the  more  modern  Samaritans,  if  Josephus  does  them  justice, 
even  down  to  the  times  we  are  considering.  How  happened 
it  that  in  Judea  alone,  such  a  remarkable  change  had  taken 
place  ?  Had  the  seventy  years'  captivity  in  Babylon,  the  re- 
formation under  Ezra  and  Nehemiah,  nothing  to  do  with  this 
change  ?  Or  is  it  unlikely  that  the  iron  yoke  of  their  Asmo- 
nean  kino-s  and  the  still  bloodier  bondao-e  under  Herod  should 
huve  done  something  towards  divorcing  them,  or  a  portion  of 
them,  from  king  worship  and  the  idolatry  of  their  effigies  ? 


DEMOCRACY-  OF  ClIRISTIANTY.  335 

Taken  in  connexion  with  the  inspired  histor^^,  the  law, 
and  the  prophecy  which  preceded  this  incident,  can  we 
well  help  recognizing  the  retributive  providences  that  had, 
in  some  measure,  and  after  some  sort,  divorced  a  portion 
of  them  from  the  insane  and  heathenish  veneration  of 
great  men  and  the  deified  images  of  them,  for  which  their 
progenitors  had  been  distinguished  1 

Be  it  so  that  they  were  quite  as  far  as  ever  from  appre- 
hending and  cherishing  the  true  idea  of  divine  worship — 
be  it  so  that  the  covetousness  which  is  idolatry  had  taken 
full  possession  of  their   bosoms — -be  it  so  that  they  were 
still   sycophantic   and   servile,   the   fact  of  their  divorce 
from  image  worship,  and,  to  some  extent,  from  king  wor- 
ship, in   the  form  cherished   by  their  fathers,  remains  a 
historical  fact,   nevertheless,   teaching   us  what  God  was 
doing  for  the  moral  benefit  of  that  people  j   however  stu- 
pidly   and    wickedly   they   overlooked  the  deep  spiritual 
significancy  of  it,  and   contented  themselves  with  a  mere 
fragmentary  and  partial,  perhaps  temporary,  reformation, 
and  t/iai  only  in  respect  to  the  mere  outward  form.     It  is  in 
this  very  way,  under  the  providence  of  God,  that  human 
perverseness  is   gradually  counteracted,  and  human  pro- 
gress,   in    the    lapse  of  successive  ages,   secured.     The 
Pharisees   may   have  been  no  better  thnn  the  Sadducees, 
but  it  was   well   that  through   the    former,  the  true  doc- 
trines of  the  spiritual  ^Yorid  and  of  the  resurrection  of  the 
dead    were   preserved.     The   Jews  in   the  time\of  Pilate 
may  have  been  no  better  than  those  in  the  time  of  Zede- 
kiah.     They  may   have  been  ripening  for  a  more  fearful 
destiny.     But  their  divorce   from  image  worship  (super- 
stitious as  t/ieij  may    have   been  in  that  very  thing)  may 
have  saved  coming  generations  from  image  worship,  and 
this  may  have  been  an  important  step  in  human  progress 
towards  a  spiritual  worship  of  the  Creator,  and  a  downfall 
of  the  worship  of  the  creature ;  the  restoration  of  man  to 
his   God   and  the  consequent  annihilation  of  autocratic 
power. 


.'^3'6  DENfOCRACy    OF  CHRrSTIAKlTr. 

It  needed,  however,  the  long  predicted  destruction  of 
Jerusalem,  the  dispersion  of  the  Jews,  and   the  utter  an- 
nihilation of  the  church  and  state  arrangements  they  had 
maintained  since  the  accession  of  their  Asmonean  dynas- 
ty, to  extinguish,  completely,  their  unreasonable  hopes  of 
deliverance  and  of  independence   under  their  own  native' 
kings.     Their   prophecies   concerning   the   Messiah,  this 
lingering  hero  worship  and  king  worship  had  led  them  to 
interpret  in  the  literal  and  secular  sense.     As  the  compu- 
ted time  of  the  Messiah  drew  near,  these  hopes  were  re- 
vived,  and   ambitious   or   restless   men  were  disposed  to 
raise  a  standard  of  revolt  against   the  power  of  the   Ro- 
mans.     Theudas,   and  Judas  cS  Galilee,  as  mentioned  by 
Gamaliel,    (Acts   v.    36-37)    were   among  the  number  of 
these.    This  threw  the  Koman  governors  into  an  attitude  of 
self-defence.     The  mission  of  Jesus  of  Nazareth  was  mis- 
understood :  hence  the  slaughter  of  the  children  of  Beth" 
lehem  by   Herod  :    hence   also   the  charge  against  Jesus 
that  he  set  himself  up  for  a  king  :  hence  likewise  the  fear 
that  if   all   men   in  Judea  believed  in  the  Messiah  ship  of 
Jesus,  the  Romans  would  come  and  take  away  both  their 
place  and  nation  :  and  hence,  yet  again,  the  actual  move- 
ment by  a  portion  of  the  Jewish  people,  who  witnessed 
his  miracles,  to  take  him   by  force,  and  make  him  a  king, 
an  honor  which,  as  they   understood  kingship,  the  Savior 
declined.     The  question  of  Pilate  to  Jesus,   "Art  thou  a 
king,  then  V  and  his  superscription  over  the  cross — ''Je- 
sus of  Nazareth,  the  king  of  the  Jews,"  are  evidences  of 
the  excitability  of  the  public   mind,   on    the  subject,  and 
the  readiness  of  the    Roman   governor  to  satirize  the  ex- 
pectations of  the  Jews  in  that  direction. 

The  subsequent  feuds,  factions  and  seditions,  at  Jeru- 
salem, giving  at  once  occasion  and  opportunity  to  theRo- 
mans  to  besiege  and  demolish  that  ill-fated  city,  appear 
to  have  grown  out  of  rivalries  and  aspirations  connected 
more  or  less  direcdy  with  some  vague  expectations  of  a 
heroic   deliverer  from   U^e   foreign  yoke.     Such  however 


DKIVIOC'RACY  OF  CHRISTIANITY.  .'^37 

were  not  the  purposes  of  high  Heaven  in  respect  to  thein. 
Having  preferred,  as  Samuel  affirmed,  the  protection  of 
earthly    monarchs   to   the  protection  of  God,   and  having 
never  fully  and  permanently  corrected  that  capital  error, 
they  were  left  to  reap  its  legitimate  fruits.     Having  cru- 
cified the  Lord  of  glory  to  propitiate    the   favor  of- a  hu- 
man potentate^  vociferating,  "  JVe  have  no  king  but  Ccesar^^^ 
they  were  righteously   given  over  into  the  hands  of  their 
chosen  kings,  and  compelled  to  drink  of  the  bloody  cup  of 
human   kingship,  to    its    last    bitter   dregs.      That   their 
course  was  inconsistent,  unstable,  and  self-contradictory, 
that  they  sometimes  spurned   the  effigies  of  the  Roman 
emperors,  at  other  times  propitiated  the  imperial  favor  by 
rejecting  their  ovvni  Messiah,   and    then,  again,  rose  up  in 
rebellion  and  sedition — is  no  more  strange  or  unaccount- 
able than  that  conscience  and  passion  should  conflict  with 
each  other — that  sycophancy  and   rashness  should  alter- 
nate— that  servility  should  be  the  cradle  of  insurrection — 
that    revolt    against  kings  should  tread  rapidly  upon  the 
heels  of  king  worship,  and  that  the  burning  bramble  should 
consume  the  cedar  that  had  trusted  in  its  shadow.     Spec- 
ulate as  we  may,  the  historical  facts  are  before  us.     God 
provided  a  democracy   for   the  Hebrews.     They  spurned 
it,  for  the  control  of  kings,  and  the  first  act  of  the  drama 
ended  in   Babylon.     By  signal   divine   interpositions,  the 
democracy  was,   in   a   measure,  restored.     Again,  in  the 
course  of  events,   it   was  exchanged  for  the  dominion  of 
kings.     The   second    act  of  the  drama  terminates  in  the 
destruction   of  Jerusalem,  by   kingly    power.     A  kingly 
government  the  Jews  would  have,  and  by  the  oppression 
of  kings  the  Jewish  nation  was  destroyed.     Here  the  Jew- 
ish history  terminates,  as  did  that  of  the  ten  tribes  in  As- 
syria, under  a  similar  visitation,   and  for  similar  causes. 
With  the  ten   tribes,   the   autocratic  apostacy  was  com- 
plete, and  the  destruction  was  final.      With  the  remnant 
of  Judah,  a  leaven  of  the  true  religion  and  of  the  spirit  of 
democracy  were  preserved  :  hence  the  restoration  and  the 


338  DEr.lOCilACif    OF    CHRISTIANITY. 

second  experimexit :  hence,  too,  when  the  state  was  again 
wrecked  and  the  temjDle  destroyed,  there  was  a  preserva- 
tion from  the  oblivion  and  the  utter  annihilation  of  the 
ten  tribes,  who  are  no  where  to  be  found.  Some  founda- 
tion stones  of  religion  and  of  democracy  the  scattered 
Jews  were  commissioned  (in  despite  of  their  own  obsti- 
nate unbelief)  to  preserve  and  to  transmit,  to  all  the  com- 
ing generations  of  the  civilized  world.  Especially  by 
their  Messiah  and  his  disciples,  were  the  seeds  of  spirit- 
ual worship  and  the  spirit  of  equal  common  brotherhood 
to  be  borne  to  the  ends  of  the  earth. 

*  One  observation,  obvious  enough,  but  quite  important, 
must  not  escape  us,  as  we  linger  a  moment  at  this  point 
of  survey.  That  ascendancy  of  the  priesthood  in  civil 
matters,  in  Christ's  time,  that  stands  out  so  prominently 
in  the  New  Testament  history,  had  its  origin,  as  the 
reader  now  understands,  not  in  the  institutions  of  Moses, 
not  even  in  the  usages  of  the  kingdoms  of  Israel  and  Ju- 
dah  before  the  Assyrian  and  Chaldean  conquests.  It 
must  have  grown  up  under  the  high  priesthoods  appoint- 
ed by  the  heathen  kings  of  Judea  after  the  restoration  or 
under  the  sacerdotal  sway  of  the  Asmonean  kings.  The 
precise  form  it  bore  in  the  New  Testament  era,  must  have 
been  of  still  later  origin,  must  have  been  shaped  after  the 
native  kings  of  Judea  had  beeil  displaced  by  the  Roman 
governors,  perhaps  during  the  reign  of  Herod,  it  was  at 
the  '^palace  of  the  high  priest"  that  the  national  council 
or  Sanhedrim  convened,  when  Jesus  was  arrested  by 
them  in  the  garden,  and  conducted  thither.  The  priest- 
hood concentrated,  substantiailj^,  within  itself,  whatever 
of  civile  legislative,  judicial,  or  executive  power,  pertain- 
ed to  the  Jews.  T/iis  power  it  was,  too  strong  tor  the  peo- 
ple at  large,  as  well  as  for  the  adherents  of  Jesus,  that 
was  all  powerful  on  that  memorable  occasion.  So  high- 
ly esteemed  was  Jesas  among  the  masses,  that,  by  day- 
light, and  in  the  temple,  they  adventured  not  to  lay  hands 
on  him,  lest  they  should  themselves  be  stoned.     So  deli- 


DEMOCRACY  OF  CHRISTIANITY.  339 

cate  was  the  probiem  of  arresting  him  that  it  was  only 
under  the  cover  of  night,  "  in  the  absence  of  the  multi- 
tude," and  by  the  basest  arts  of  combined  treachery  and 
bribery,  with  the  personal  attendance  in  the  garden,  of 
"the  chief  priests,  and  captains  of  the  temple  and  the 
elders,"  and  also  their  armed  "  servants,  and  a  band  of 
soldiers,  composing  a  great  multitude,"  that  the  arrest 
could  be  accomplished,  even  in  the  subjugated  condition 
of  the  people!  The  servile  city  rabble  roused  by  the 
priesthood,  at  the  trial,  are  not  to  be  confounded  with  the 
mass  of  Judean  yeomanrj-  who  had  so  rectntly  conducted 
Jesus  into  the  city  with  high  honors.  '' The  common 
people  heard  him  gladly."  It  is  frequently  said  that  the 
same  multitude  on  one  occasion  shouted  -'Hosanna!" 
on  another  occasion,  soon  after,  cried  "  Crucify  !"  There 
is  not  the  slightest  foundation  for  the  aspersion  !  The 
country'  inhabitants  who  escorted  Jesus  into  the  city  must 
have  returned  to  their  rural  avocations  and  their  homes, 
long  before  these  occurrences  took  place.  Defective  as 
they  may  have  been  in  their  religion,  under  their  aristo- 
cratic teachers,  they  were  not  such  monsters  of  wiclced- 
ness  nor  such  specimens  of  insanity' as  to  conduct  to  their 
metropolis  the  Benefactor  whose  miracles  of  mercy  as- 
tonished them,  with  shouts  of  "  hosanna"!  and  then,  tar- 
ry there  a  number  of  dajs,  (which,  by  Luke's  account, 
must  have  intervened,)  for  the  purpose  of  demanding  his 
crucifixion!  Human  nature,  depraved  as  it  is,  supplies 
history  with  no  instances  of  this  kind.  And  the  inspired 
Record  warrants  no  such  statement  or  conjecture,  in  this 
case.  Jesus  sufTered  death  under  a  relentless  ecclesias- 
tical despotism,  too  strong  for  the  people,  controlling  the 
civil  power,  and  wielding,  as  such  aristocracies  common- 
ly do,  the  basest  and  most  lawless  portion  of  tiie  })opu- 
lace,  on  fitting  emergencies,  as  the  less  guilty  instruments 
of  their  tyranny  over  the  mass  of  the  people.  Of  the  same 
materials  are  mobs  and  standing  armies  usually  com- 
posed, the  feculum  of  human  society,   the   most  ready  to 


340  DEMOORAOY  OF  OHRISTIANlTy. 

glorify  military  heroes,  to  venerate  priestly  imposture, 
and  sustain  the  divine  right  of  kings.  Right  loyal  to 
Ccesar  were  the  Jewish  priesthood  and  senate,  and  their 
attendant  rabble,  when  he  whom  'Uhe  people  wexe  wexy 
attentive  to  hear,"  and  who  "stirred  up  the  people,"  was 
to  be  crucified,  for  reproving  their  oppressions  !  The  ad- 
ditional aid  of  a  "  band  of  soldiers,"  under  state  pay,  was 
also  required  when,  on  the  way  to  the  cross,  "there  fol- 
lowed him  a  great  company  ot  people  and  of  women 
which  also  bewailed  and  lamented  him." 

Imagine  now,  for  one  moment,    the  democratic  institu- 
tions of  the   Mosaic   commonwealth,   as  he  left  them,  to 
have  been  in  full  operation  in  Judea  at  this  time— no  cen- 
tral  government   distinct   from   the   people—no  military 
distinct  from  the  citizens— no   organized  priesthood  con- 
trolling,  as   a  senate,   the   affairs  of  state  :   imagine  the 
democmtic  judiciary  duly  organized,  independent  of  cen- 
tralized control,    (ecclesiastical,   military,  or  civil,;  ima- 
gine the  state  of  society  and  the  tone  of  morals  that  could 
render  such  a  civil  government  possible  ;  and  what  reason 
would  there   be  to  apprehend  any  such  event  as  the  cru- 
cifixion of  Jesus  ?     Nay!    Take  the   Jews    as   they  were 
in  Christ's  time,   only  without  their  corrupt  government, 
(if  the  supposition  be  allowable)  and  how  could  the  result 
have  been    brought    about,    among  a  people   whose    "  ah- 
smce"  was  even  now  necessary  to  the  arrest  1     The  entire 
"congregation"  were  to  be  the  judges,  under  the  law,  in 
capital   offences,    and  preaching  to   the  people   was  not 
among  the  indictable  crimes.      Without  a  nobility  to  lead 
on  their  paid  serviles,  or  to  create  such  a  class  of  commu- 
nity, is  it  likely  that  the   people   attentive  to  hear  Jesus, 
n.nd  in  whose  presence   he  could  not  be  touched,   could 
have   been   out-voted,   overawed,  or  overborne  1     Would 
his  friends   have  forsaken  him  and  fled,  but  through  fear 
of  the  grim  despotism  under  which  the  people  were  bound 

down  1 

Those  who  quote  Jewish  precedent  for  Christian  hi  or- 


DCAlOCRACY  OF  CHRISTIANlTV.  341 

archies,  church  and  state  unions,  and  autocratic  power 
should  be  pointed  to  the  palace  of  Caiaphas,  tlie  Sanhe- 
drim there  convened,  and  the  interviews  between  the  San- 
hedrim and  Pilate.  All  the  Jewish  precedents  available 
for  them,  culminated  then  and  there. 

The  Jewish  nation  was  indeed  responsible  for  the  death 
of  Jesus,  just  as  it  was  responsible  for  the  innocent  blood 
shed  in  Jerusalem  by  king  Manasseh,  which  the  Lord 
would  not  pardon.  On  the  people  God  had  laid  the  re- 
sponsibility of  providing  an  independent  democratic  judi- 
ciary, the  responsibility  of  its  just  and  equitable  action, 
despite  of  all  usurped  priesthoods  and  Sanhedrims,  with 
the  mobs  of  sycophants  that  their  serpentine  and  slimy 
course  never  fails  to  trail  after  them. 

The  Savior  was  crucified  in  revenge  for  his  reproofs  of 
sacerdotal  usurpation,  of  aristocratic  oppression  and  pride.* 
His  blood  rested  on  the  Jewish  nation,  because  the  peo- 
ple failed  to  rescue  him  from  the  rage  of  despots,  in  the 
use  of  the  democratic  institutions  which  God  had  provi- 
ded for  such  ends,  and  which  it  was  their  business  to 
have  preserved  and  administered.  They  crucified,  pros- 
pectively, the  Savior,  in  permitting  such  a  murderous 
oligarchy  to  grow  up  annong  them,  and  in  recognizing, 
obsequiously,  its  usurped  and  unrighteous  claims  of  pow- 
er. We  say  not  that  this  was  their  only  sin  in  respect 
to  the  Savior,  but  we  do  maintain  that  this  was  a  promi- 
nent item  in  their  guilt. 

The  mass  of  the  Jewish  people  did  indeed  reject  their 
Messiah,  and  in  so  doing,  rejected  "  the  True  God  and 
Eternal  Life."  But  w/iy,  on  what  account,  and  from  wdiat 
causes  were  they  led  to  reject  him  1  By  what  tempta- 
tions, under  what  influences,  from  the  force  of  what 
habits  of  thinking,  under  what  system  of  moral,  reli- 
gious, and  political  instruction,  education,  and  training, 
by  the   following  of   what  maxims,    and  by  whose  exam- 


*  Sci-  ihe  23J  chapter  of  INlatlhew,  also   the   19t!i  chai.lcv  of  Luke, 
r  45-48. 


342  DEMOCRACY  OF  CHRISTIANITY. 

pie  were  they  blinded  and  hardened,  seduced  and  de- 
stroyed 1 

They  rejected  the  ti^ue  Messiah  because  their  hearts 
were  doating  upon  a  false  one,  a  temporal  monarch  a  mere 
human  king  1  Like  their  rebellious  fathers,  in  the  days 
of  Samuel,  they  lusted  after  suck  a  king,  that  they  might 
be  "Jike  al]  the  nations"  round  about  them,  and  so  they 
*'  rejected  Jehovah  that  He  should  not  reign  over  them." 
They  were  clamorous  enough  to  make  Jesus  their  king,  if 
he  would  only  consent  to  be  a  king,  in  the  ordinary  ac- 
ceptation of  that  term.  But  he  wouid  consent  to  nothing 
of  the  kind.  His  mission  was,  not  to  set  up  a  rival  au- 
thority and  withdraw  men  from  their  allegiance  to  the 
one  only  living  and  true  God,  as  the  kings  of  this  world 
were  doing.  He  sought,  on  the  other  hand,  to  withdraw 
them  from  all  such  idolatrous  king  worship,  the  worship 
of  a  mere  man  like  themselves,  that  they  might  worship 
the  Lord  their  God,  and  serve  none  but  Him.  ^s  a  man, 
among  men,  "  made  under  the  law,"  and  subject  to  the 
law  of  man's  social  nature,  he  would  not  dishonor  that 
law,  or  violate  the  holy  brotherhood  of  the  race,  or  re- 
lease social  humanity  from  the  Heaven-imposed  responsi- 
bilities resting  upon  it,  in  the  matter  of  civil  government, 
nor  dishonor  and  displace  the  Heaven-ordained  democra- 
cy of  the  Hebrew  commonwealth,  (as  obligatory  then  as 
ever)  by  allowing  a  nation  ol  idolatrous  king  worshippers, 
who  saw  nothing  in  him  but  a  strong  man,  to  make  an 
idol  of  Am.'.  Could  it  be  proved  (we  think  it  cannot) 
that  the  mass  of  the  Je\yish  nation  desired  the  crucifixion 
of  Jesus  their  eloquent  prophet  and  the  healer  of  their  dis- 
eases, so  strange  a  fact  could  be  accounted  for  in  noway 
so  satisfactorily  as  by  supposing  that  they  were  disap- 
pointed and  chagrined  because  he  would  not  assume  the 
reins  of  civil  government  as  their  dictator,  their  king. 

Be  this  as  it  may,  the  mass  of  the  Jewish  people  reject- 
ed their  Messiah  because  their  tastes,  their  habits  of  think- 
ing, their  feelings,  their  aspirations,  were  altogether  too  anti- 


DEMOCRACY"    OF    CHRISTIANITY.  343 

democratic  to  relish  so  lowly,  so  meek,  so  unpretending  a 
Messiah  as  he  was  :  one  who  aspired  to  no  regal  honors 
among  men  :  who  had  none  to  confer  upon  his  favorites  : 
one  who  favored  no  aristocratic  pretensions  and  respected 
none  :  who  recognized,  everywhere,  the  equal  common 
brotherhood  of  the  race:  who  taught  that  the  greatest 
should  be  servant  of  all :  who  himself  washed  the  feet  of 
the  fishermen  of  Galilee  :  who  reproved  aristocratic  dis- 
tinctions and  oppressions  :  who  ate  with  the  poor  as  w^ell 
as  with  the  rich,  and  labored  with  his  own  hands  for  the 
supply  of  his  wants.  The  mass  of  the  Jewish  people  re- 
jected the  carpenter  of  Nazareth,  because  they  bowed 
down  before  emperors,  and  Sanhedrims,  and  priesthoods, 
and  kings,  as  for  centuries  their  fathers  had  been  accus- 
tomed to  do,  in  utter  forgetfulness  of  the  simple  democ- 
racy God  had  provided  for  them,  and  under  the  usages 
and  administration  of  which,  had  they  retained  and  hon- 
ored them,  their  aristocratic  tastes,  their  sycophancy,  and 
their  ser.vility,  that  now  manacled  and  fettered  them, 
could  never  have  been  engendered  and  nurtured  into  such 
gigantic  dimensions,  beclouding  their  intellects,  extin- 
guishing their  humanity,  depraving  their  affections,  and 
throttling  their  common  sense.  The  mass  of  the  Jewish 
people  rejected  their  Messiah  because  their  obsequious 
compliance  with  the  wishes  of  their  supposed  "  wisest 
and  best,"  the  habit  of  seeing  through  the  eyes  of  their 
hierarchies,  and  of  acting  at  the  bidding  of  their  heroes, 
had  almost  rendered  it  impracticable  for  them  to  see  with 
their  own  eyes,  to  "judge,  of  themselves,  what  was 
ri2:ht,''  to  direct  their  own  activities,  like  independent, 
honest,  God-fearing  men.  Jn  other  words,  their  king 
worship  and  their  priest  worship  had  displaced  the  wor- 
ship of  God.  The  mass  of  tlie  Jewish  people  rejected 
their  Messiah,  because,  as  he  told  them,  they  received 
honor  one  of  another,  the  honor  of  men,  and  not  the  honor 
that  cometh  from  God  only — because  they  were  like  blind 
men,  led  by  the  blind,  and  both  falling  into  the  ditch — be- 


344  DEMOCRACY  OF  CHRISTIANITY. 

cause  they  trusted  in  their  councillors,  and  Rabbis,  and 
great  men,  instead  of  turning  iheir  eyes  inward,  to  con- 
bult  the  true  light  that  lighteth  every  man  that  cometh 
into  the  world.  They  rejected  him  because,  instead  of 
investigating  his  claims  for  themselves,  as  the  democratic 
spirit  would  have  encouraged  them  to  do,  they  were  ever 
more  in  the  attitude  of  sycophants  and  listeners,  bending 
forward  to  hear  what  their  crafty  ecclesiastics  and  plot- 
ting politicians  said  of  him  !  "  Have  any  of  the  rulers 
or  of  the  Pharisees  believed  on  him,"  was  a  question  that, 
instead  of  exciting  manly  derision,  was  enough,  (as  in 
most  other  aristocratic  communities)  to  remand  whole 
hetacombs  of  brutalized  immortals  back  into  non-exist- 
ence, so  far  as  individuality  of  thought  and  action  were 
concerned. 

All  were  not  such.  Thanks  to  the  All-Wise  Dispenser 
of  the  providential  chastisements  already  noticed,  a  seed 
was  preserved — a  remnant  was  saved.  The  same  crush- 
ing despotisms  that  had  made  the  faint  hearted  yet  more 
servile,  and  pushed  forward  the  nation  to  its  sad  destiny, 
had  wounded  a  more  generous  and  manly  class  of  spirits, 
that  their  wounds  might  be  healed.  Of  their  idolatrous 
king  worship,  the  chosen  of  God  were  at  length,  and  in 
some  degree,  cured.  In  the  school  of  Jesus,  the  maxims 
of  aristocracy  and  the  spirit  of  sycophancy  and  ambition 
were  exposed  and  rebuked.  It  needed  line  upon  line,  and 
precept  upon  precept,  to  dislodge,  fully,  the  autocratic 
idea,  and  introduce  the  democratic  in  its  stead.  The 
two  sons  of 'Zebidee  needed  special  lessons  before  they 
could  unlearn  what  had  been  taught  their  nation  under 
the  Asmonean  dynasty  and  its  successors.  U  their  Mes- 
siah was  to  be  another  Judas  Maccabeas  or  John  Hyrca- 
nus,  as  they  seem  to  have  supposed,  they  thought  it  not 
unbefitting  that  the  second  and  third  posts  in  the  king- 
dom should  be  theirs.  And  Peter,  if  he  did  not  think  of 
petitioning  for  the  See  of  Kome,  was  scandalized  at  the 
thought  that  the   king  of  Israel    should  wash  the   feet  of 


DEMOCRACY-    OF    CHRISTIANITY.  345 

his  attendants.  A  higher  dignity  than  that,  he  may  have 
aspired  after  himself,  as  one  of  the  twelve,  but  he  learned 
another  philosophy,  as  did  his  fellow  disciples,  after  a 
time.  And  not  until  it  was  thoroughly  learned,  and  ev- 
ery vestige  of  the  autocratic  philosophy  displaced,  were 
the  apostles  prepared  for  their  work. 

To  sum  up  the  whole  in  one  word  :  Judea,  Jerusalem, 
the  temple,  the  Jewish  church  and  state,  were  given  over 
to  destruction  and  extinction,  when  the  democratic  els- 
ment  no  longer  remained  to  vitalize  them,  and  could  not 
be  restored.  The  New  Dispensation,  rising  as  from  the 
ashes  of  the  Old,  embodied  whatever  was  worth  preserv- 
ing that  had  survived.  This  included  the  element  of  De- 
mocracy, of  course,  more  clearly  revealed,  more  fully  de- 
veloped, manifesting  itself  in  more  appropriate  forms, 
and  better  prepared  to  expand  and  propagate  itself 
throuofhout  the  world. 


CHAPTER  XXV. 

OF    THE    NEVv^    TESTAMENT    RECOFxDS. 

It  is  now  so  commonly  understood  that  the  foundation  facts 
jand  historical  records  of  the  'New  Testament  are  democratic 
in  their  general  aspects  and  bearings  that  we  shall  not  need  to 
pause  long  in  the  proof  or  illustration  of  so  plain  a  position- 
To  present  the  documentary  evidence  would  be  to  transcribe 
a  large  portion  of  the  Volume  itself,  including  the  teachings  of 
Jesus.  When  we  come  to  treat,  more  directly,  as  we  hope  to 
do,  of  the  Christian  doctrines,  in  their  bearing  upon  Democra- 
cy, it  will  be  in  place  to  advert  to  those  teachings  again.  For 
the  present,  it  may  suffice  to  glance,  rapidly,  at  the  general 
features  of  the  Xew  Testament  history,  as  presented  in  the 
four  gospels,  and  in  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles.  We  need  no* 
particularize,  even  here.     Every  child,  at  the  Sabb  atli  schoo 


346  DEMOCRACY  OF  CHRISTIANITY. 

■ivill  recognize  tlie  picture,  if  trutlifully  drawn.  We  cannot  do 
better  than  to  copy  a  few  paragraphs  from  an  article  in  a  Brit- 
ish periodical,  (Tait's  Magazine)  the  writer  of  which,  whoever 
he  may  be,  gives  a  graphic  description,  and  holds  a  terse  pen : 

"'The  Christian  rehgion,'  says  Novalis,  in  words  which  fre- 
quent quotation  has  rendered  familiar  to  us,  '  is  the  root  of  all 
democracy — the  highest  fact  in  the  rights  of  man.'  We  be- 
lieve that  this  utterance  of  high-flown  '  German  mysticism,'  as 
some  worthy  people  call  it,  is  a  piece  of  as  sound  and  sober 
truth  as  ever  was  spoken.  The  Ciiristian  religion,  taken  from 
the  most  general  point  of  view  from  which  we  can  regard  it— 
as  a  great  moral  and  spiritual  fact  in  the  history  of  the  world 
— consecrates  and  sanctifies  those  principles  from  which  de- 
mocracy most  naturally  springs,  on  which  it  most  securely 
rests,  by  which  human  rights  are  most  effectually  vindicated, 
and  Avhich  the  tyrants  and  oppressors  of  mankind  most  hearti- 
ly detest. 

_ "  Thus,  Christianity  consecrates  the  principle  of  appealing 
directly  to  the  common  people  on  the  very  highest  and  deepest 
questions  of  human  interest.  The  gospel  treats  the  popular 
intellect  with  respect  and  friendliness.  There  is  nothing  esoteric 
in  its  doctrines  or  spirit.  '  What  ye  hear  in  the  "ear,  that 
preach  ye  upon  the  house-tops,'-^is  the  mandate  of  its  benefi- 
cent Founder.^  It  recognizes  no  aristocracy  of  caste  or  class, 
of  birth  or  office — no  aristocracy  of  intellect  even:  it  'honors 
all  men,'  by  addressing  itself  to  faculties  and  feelings  which  all 
men  in  common  possess.  That  'the  poor  have  the  gospel 
preached  unto  them'  is  adduced  by  Jesus  as  one  of  the  most 
distinctive  signs  of  his  divine  mission:  and  itis.this,  more  than 

any  thing  else,  which  constitutes   the  gospel  a  great  fact the 

greatest  of  facts— in  the  philosophy  of'the^ightl  of  man.  This 
preaching  of  a  gospel  to  the  poor  assumes  that  the  poor  have 
faculties  for  the  appreciation  of  the  profoundest  of  moral  truths : 
that  there  is  nothing  too  good  to  be  given  to  them:  that  the 
enlightening  of  their  imderstandings,  the  awakening  of  their 
feelings,  the  guiding  of  their  aspirations  to  spiritual  beaut}-, 
truth,  and  good,  is  a  work  worthy  of  the  highest  order  of  in- 
telligence. The  Christian  religion  is  the  loftiest  wisdom  de- 
scending, without  any  parade  of  condescension,  to  commune 
with  the  deepest  ignorance— lifting  up  its  voice,  not  in  the 
schools  of  learning  and  science,  but  in  the  highways  of  human 
intercourse,  in  the  very  streets  and  market-places.  Here, 
we  take  it,  is  the  Education  question  settled,  once  for  all,  on 
the  highest  authority.     The  old  Tory  anti-education  clamor 


DEMOCRACY   OF  CHRISTIANITY.  347 

about  the  danger  of  raising  poor  people's  minds  abov^e  their 
station  in  Ufe,  is  rebuked  by  the  example  of  the  inspired  Teach- 
er of  the  world.  For,  the  sort  of  kno^vledo•e  on  -which  this 
dangerous  tendency  is  most  obviously  chargeable,  the  knowl- 
edge which  most  powerfully  raises  men's  minds  above  the  level 
of  the  vulgar  Avorkin^-  world,  is  given  freely  and  without  re- 
serve to  all.  Surely,  if  the  doctrines  of  the  Christian  theology 
are  not  too  stimulating  a  nutriment  for  common  minds,  neither 
is  chemistry,  nor  geology,  nor  poetry,  nor  mathematics.  The 
whole  circle  of  the  arts  and  sciences  is,  we  apprehend,  less 
calculated  to. raise  poor  people's  minds  above  the  station  of 
life  in  which  it  has  pleased  Providence  to  place  them,  than  is 
the  disclosure  of  mysteries,  into  which,  as  we  are  told,  '  the 
angels  de'feire  to  look.' 

"  The  gospel  is,  then,  an   appeal  to  thft  many,  the  millions, 
the  common  people ;  assumes  a  capacity  in  the  common  peo- 
ple receptive  of  the  deepest  and  weightiest  of  moral  truths.    It 
is  more  tlian  this.     It  is  an  appeal  to  the  many  against  the 
fcAv — to  the  people  against  their  rulers.     Such,  taken  histori- 
cally, is  the  most  obvious  external  aspect  of  the  public  preach- 
ing of  Jesus.     It  was  a  stiri-ing-up  of  the  soul  of  the  Hebrew 
commonalty  into  protest  and  spiritual  revolt  against  a  vicious 
ecclesiastical  government.     It  was  an  endeavor  to  create  in 
Palestine   an  enlightened  public  opinion,  a  pure  and  earnest 
public  morality,  adverse  to  the  influence  of  the  constituted  au- 
thorities,, and  to  the  permanence  of  the  existing  order  of  things. 
That  it  was  infinitely  more  than  this — that  this  politico-moral 
feature  of  the  teachings  of  Jesus  was  by  no  means  the  whole, 
nor   even   the    chief  part,  of  their  significance — we  have,  of 
course,  no  intention  to  deny.     Still,  it  was  this :  to  say  that 
Christianity  does  present  this  aspect,  among  others,  is  simply 
to  state  an  historical  fact.     Jesus  of  Nazareth  taught  the  Jew- 
ish people,  Avith  the  utmost  freedom  and  plainness,  a  morality 
subversive  of  the  influence  of  their  rulers;  taught  them  to  dis- 
trust those  rulers  as  'blind,'  and  to  scorn  them  ns  'hypocrites.' 
Here,  then,  we  have   another  great  politic;il  truth,  resting  on 
the  highest  authority,  and  exemplified  in  the  most  illustrious  of 
precedents.     The  gospel  Consecrates  the   principle  of  moral- 
force  agitation.     It  recognizes  the  right  and  duty  of  insurrec- 
tion— the  insurrection,  that  is,  of  the  heart  and  understanding 
against  hypocrisy  and  falsehood — though   the  hypocrisy  and 
falsehood  sit  in  the  very  seat  of  Moses,  and  are  environed  with 
the  prestige  of  antiquity   and   legitimacy.     It  keeps  no  teims, 
except  those  of  truth,   with  consecrated  turpitude,  and  legiti- 
mate  old-cstabhshed   ini(j[uity.     It  brings  human  authorities, 


348  DEMOCRACY  OF  OHRlSTIANItv. 

the  most  reverend  and  time-honored— human  institutions,  the 
most  securely  hedged  round  by  tradition,  popular  veneration, 
and  the  use  and  wont  of  ages,  to  the  test  of  eternal  and  divine 
moralities,  proclaiming  that  every  tree  not  of  God's  plantino- 
shall  be  rooted  up.  It  speaks  the  plainest  truths  about  public 
men  in  the  plainest  way.  *  Hypocrite*,'  '  extortioners,'  *  ser- 
pents,' *  vipers,'  '  children  of  hell' — such  is  the  dialect  in  which 
the  New  Testament  speaks  of  corrupt  and  unprincipled  rulers. 
The  spirit  of  the  book  is  that  of  antagonism  to  existing  ideas 
and  established  authorities.  The  first  preaching  of  the  gospel 
drove  constituted  authorities  mad  with  rage ;  scared  a  guilty 
tetrarch,  and  made  a  Roman  governor  tremble;  and  its  writ- 
ten page.  (James,  Chap,  v.)  denounces  the  oppressions  and 
frauds  of  '  rich  men'  of  the  landlord  class,  in  a  tone  which 
now-a-days  would  be  thought  to  savor  of  the  League,  or  even 
the  charter.  *  *  '''  *  * 

"  Its  early  triumphs  consisted,  as  an  apostle  eloquently 
boasts,  in  the  foolish,  and  weak,  and  base  things  of  the  world, 
confounding  the  wise,  the  mighty,  the  honored.  The  history 
of  Christianity  is  that  of  a  revolution  which  began  with  what 
cabinet  ministers  and  bishops  call  'the  dregs  of  the  peo- 
ple,' and  mounted  upward  and  upward,  till  it  scaled  and  cap- 
tured the  throne  of  the  Caesars.  The  raising  of  vfillies  and 
laying  low  of  hills  v\'as  the  burden  of  the  prophetic  announce- 
ment of  the  gospel's  approach,  and  the  '  glory  to  God  in  the 
highest,'  which  angels  announced  as  its  final  aim,  can  only  be 
realized  wlien  '  peace  on  earth,  and  good  will  among  men' 
shall  be  established  universally  upon  the  basis  of  pohtical  jus- 
tice." 

Little  more  need  be  said  on  this  topic.  The  babe  of  Beth- 
lehem— the  stable — the  manger — the  carpenter  of  Xazareth — 
the  fishermen  of  Galilee — the  meek  yet  triumphant  entry  into 
Jerusalem  upon  ''  a  colt,  the  foal  of  an  ass — all  these,  familiar 
as  household  words,  and  engraven  upon  the  memory  of  all 
Christendom,  tell  a  story  so  plain,  yet  significant,  that  the  way- 
faring man,  though  a  fool,  need  not  err.  That  J  esus  was  of  the 
lineage  of  David,  and  heir  of  his  throne,  was  a  fact  that,  so  far 
from  identifying  him  with  the  great  ones  of  earth,  gave  to  his 
obscurity,  humiliation,  and  poverty,  a  deeper  coloring,  and  to 
his  refusal  of  that  throne,  in  its  literal  sense,  fresh  emphasis  of 
meaning. 

FINIS. 


Date  Due 

* 

1 

1 
1 

JUN  1 

5  1988 

jyw-i^j^w-- 

^ 

>M 


Princeton  Theological  Seminary-Speer  Library 


1    1012  01049  9459 


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